


When The World Went To Hell

by BlakeWolf



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Beating, Bi, Blood, Clementine & Vincent, Clementine & Violet - Freeform, Death, F/F, F/M, FTM, Friendship, Gay, Guitar, Inspired by The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game), Lesbian, Love, Monsters, Muertos - Freeform, Music, Other, Panic Attacks, Piano, Romance, Science, Science has gone far in this AU, The walking dead game - Freeform, Trans Character, Transgender, Vincent is Violet, Violence, Violet is FTM, Walkers, Weapons, Zombies, battles, female to male, hardship, telltale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2020-10-14 23:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 12
Words: 71,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20609258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlakeWolf/pseuds/BlakeWolf
Summary: The world has gone to hell, the dead are walking, the living are killing, people are trying to survive this hell hole they call a home. People are trying to still figure things out in life, and a battle rages on. People live and people die, what's so new about that?





	1. Meeting Someone New In This Hell Hole

**Author's Note:**

> YOOOOOOO! new story hope this interests people, I haven't seen this done yet so this might go well, it's something new for me to do while I figure out what to do with my other stories, hope ya'll enjoy.
> 
> ADVICE: DO NOT SKIM OVER THIS STORY, YOU WILL MISS IMPORTANT DETAILS TO IT!

(Violet’s Pov)

The name is Violet, well I like to be called Vincent, I had been born a girl and now I’m a guy, lucky for me science has gone far enough that we only needed to take one pill and bam, we don’t need to take multiple shots. I had to have surgery for my chest yes, and down below but hey least I can be who I want to be right? Well not really. My dad wasn’t so supportive of me, being who I am, and well he blamed me for my grandmothers death, saying if I had stayed as the precious granddaughter then she would still be here, or he says that because I wanted to be a boy I had screwed them over financially, even though we had been doing bad for years prior too. I don’t know all I know is that the world has finally gone to shit, well, a lot shittier than what is was before, it seems the dead have risen from their graves and eat the living. I don’t have to worry about my father anymore, unless he’s alive but… he wouldn’t come here, my mother wouldn’t either.

“Vincent come on we got work to do.” I heard Marlon say and I got up as I set my book down and I head out to the courtyard and looked at him and Louis.

“What do we have to do?” I asked as we began to walk to the gate.

“Just got to go near the edge of the safe zone to see if there is any food to catch.” He said as he grabbed his bow.

“Hmm, true, we have been running low… alright.” I said and grabbed my butcher knife and we began to walk out the gate.

“So, what do you think we will catch?” Louis asked.

“Probably some rabbits like always.” I said as I shoved him off me a bit.

“What if we get a deer this time?” He asked and I scratched my neck a bit. Need to shave soon.

“That would be great, I could make some jerky like my grandfather made it.” I said and he smiled and I nodded.

“We’d need a smoker too.” Marlon said and I nodded.

“We could try to go into the town one day?” I asked and he looked at me.

“I’ll think on it.” He said and we nodded. That’s all we could get out of him. We walked a good distance till we heard a crash and I looked to Marlon.

“Adults?” Louis asked.

“I don’t know…. We should find out.” I said and we all began to run, we even went past the safe zone and got near a train station. I looked around and I saw some smoke.

“A fire?” Marlon asked and I ran to it.

“VINC!” He yelled and I saw a car crashed upside down, down a steep slope, I slide down the steep hill and I hurry to the car and I look inside.

“MARLON, LOUIS THERE ARE KIDS!” I Yelled as I opened the door and looked to the girl as she slowly opened her eyes and closed them again, I looked to her head to see some blood and I look to see Marlon going to the other side and grabbing the boy. I pull the girl out as she said something and I look in to see a bag, Knife, and hat. I quickly grab them and place the items in the bag and put it to my back as I pick the girl up.

“Lets fucking go I’m out of arrows.” Marlon says and I nod as we quickly run in the other direction to the school. I looked to the girl as she muttered something as she looked at me a bit.

“Luke?” She asked before she closed her eye’s again. When we finally got to the school the night sky was casting over us, I took the girl to my old room where I laid her on the bed. Tenn came over along with Ruby as they checked her over.

“What happened?” Ruby asked.

“We just heard a crash and they were in a car upside down, walkers.” I said.

“Did they get bit?” She asked as she looked at me.

“No… not from what we saw, but they would have turned by now if they did get bit.” I said and she looked at me.

“Alright, boys need to leave now.” She says and I look at her.

“She needs a new shirt; can she borrow one of your old ones?” She asked and I nodded as I went and handed her my shirt.

“Alright, now go, I’ve got her.” Ruby says and I nod as I head out with Tenn as he goes to the old nurse’s office.

“You think the girl is ok?” I asked and he looked to me.

“She looks ok but we can’t really tell…. There was a boy with you guys?” He asked and I nodded as Marlon came in.

“Ruby is looking at they boy now, she said the girl has a cut on her head but she looks fine but we should uh… tie her hand to the bar.” He said and I nod a bit as I look to him.

“You know what you did was stupid Vincent, you didn’t even notice the walkers coming at you.” He said and I rubbed my neck.

“Look I just… lets talk about this later, not in front of Tenn.” I said quietly as Marlon looked at me.

“Fine, whatever.” He said and I nod as I grab some tape and Tenn and I went to my room and I looked at the girl.

“You think she will turn?” He asked as I taped her hand to the bar of my bed.

“Probably not, I mean that would be pretty shitty, to live this long but get killed in a car wreak.” I said as I looked to her. She was breathing softly and I looked at the bandage on her head.

“Where are you going to sleep?” He asked and I looked to him.

“I have look-out tonight, and if she isn’t awake by then, than I can crash in… well.” I said and looked at him then down at the floor as he nods and leaves. I look at the girl more and I head to the courtyard as I handed Marlon her bag.

“Two more mouths to feed.” He mumbled and I looked to him.

“Well at least it’s better than letting kids die like that.” I said and he looked to me.

“Sorry just…. you’re right… you’re right, lets just… get them better.” He says and I nod as I get ready for my lookout shift. It’s been days since we had saved the girl who is called Clementine, and he boy, who says his name is Alvin Junior. Currently Alvin Junior was watching me as I was strumming my guitar a bit.

“What’s that?” He asked as I looked to him.

“It’s a guitar.” I simply said and looked at him as he sat down next to me and I smiled a bit.

“Can you play it?” He asked and I nod as I strum the strings a bit and move my hand in the right position. I began to play a soft tune as I looked to him and he sways a bit and I see Tenn and Ruby, along with Brody come over as I continue to play some more.

“Wow.” I heard the boy say and I nod.

“Pretty nice hu?” I asked and he nods as he looked at the guitar as I continued to play it.

“Louis can play the piano too.” Tenn says to the boy and he looked to Tenn as I play more.

“Piano?” He asked and I nod.

“We can show it to you in a bit.” Brody says as I look to them.

“When do you think Aasim and them will be back?” I asked as I look at the gate.

“They won’t be long, if they can’t find anything then I’ll have to go with them.” Brody says and I nod a bit.

“Hey how is Clementine?” Alvin Junior asked and I looked to Ruby as I played a different tune.

“She’s doing just fine Sug.” Ruby says and I see Marlon come in through the gate with Aasim and Louis as they argued a bit. I stopped playing and got up and went over to them.

“Woah calm down, what is going on?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Marlon says.

“Bullshit dude.”

“Hey.” I said.

“Fucking, the safe zone is getting smaller how the hell can we feed our people?” Aasim asked and I looked to Marlon.

“We will find a way.” Marlon says.

“We didn’t find shit out there man.” Aasim says. And true to his word they didn’t catch anything out there.

“Hey how about I go with you Aasim and we can find some type of food.” I says as I look to him.

“There is nothing out there Vincent.” He says and I rub my neck.

“Look we still have day light to burn, we can go out again, I’ll bring my bow and we can see what we can get, let Marlon cool off.” I said as I looked to Marlon.

“Fine whatever.” Marlon says and I watch him leave.

“Can I come?” I heard and looked to Alvin Junior as he came up to us.

“Uh, it’s a bit dangerous kid.” I said.

“I can deal with monsters.” He said and I looked to Aasim.

“Sure, I don’t care but he’s not my responsibility.” He says and I look to the kid.

“Well, how about this, you stay here and uh, let Louis play the piano for you? Tell him Vincent said he sucked and you wanted to see if it was true.” I said and he nods and runs off to Tenn to ask about where to go. I look to Aasim as he looked to me and I grabbed my bow and set my guitar to the side as we begin to leave the school grounds Brody also following us out with her torch.

“Fucking Marlon is going to starve us to death if he keeps pulling back the safe zone more Vincent.” Aasim says once we get far enough from the school. I sigh as I look around a bit.

“I know but there’s nothing we can do about it right now.” I said as I looked to him.

“Bullshit, we can just go out the safe zone just for a bit, get some god damn food and no one would be the wiser.” He says and I look at him.

“And if one of us were to get hurt or worse killed?” I asked as we looked at the traps again and I rubbed my neck as I looked to see a rabbit.

“I… it wouldn’t happen.” He says and I look to him as I grab the rabbit and reset the trap.

“Hypothetical question, if it were to happen and Marlon starts to ask questions, he’d get mad.” I said and he looked to me as I looked to Brody.

“Look we’ll just make do with what we have now.” Brody says.

“Brody, it’s fucked ok, we’re going to die what are you two not getting?” He says as we stop.

“Hey I know what you’re saying man, I really do, yes we should extend the safe Zone so we have more hunting areas but right now we shouldn’t be fighting with Marlon.” I say to him.

“We have two more people at the school, they need to eat too, we don’t have enough for all of us.” He says.

“I’ll give them my portion, shit I already give some to Tenn, and I gave some to the boy too.” I say.

“And what good will you bee if you’re hungry? Damn it Vincent, you haven’t slept either you’ve taken almost everyone’s lookout shifts.” He says.

“Sacrifices man, they need to be made at some point, I remember when we would give our food to the younger kids when all this began.” I said as we worked more. Brody had grabbed one of the bigger rabbits and I nod to her.

“I understand what Aasim is saying though.” She says.

“Thank you.” Aasim says and I roll my eyes as I reset the trap.

“But I also understand Vincent as well.” She says.

“Ok, yea I get what he’s saying too but… fuck, it’s just stressing me out.” He says.

“It’s going to be fine; we’ve dealt with worse.” I said and he nods as we finish up and I light up Brody’s torch so we can see. I see some walkers in our path and I sigh as I grab my butcher knife and Aasim starts to shoot some with his bow. It wasn’t long till more came and we saw some of our group members come running up to us with the girl Clementine.

“You guy’s good?” Marlon asked and I nodded.

“Yea, let’s just head back.” I said as we began walking and I heard Louis talking.

“I call that an A-plus performance Clementine.” Louis says and I roll my eyes.

“And Vincent, you’ve done better so you get a B-minus.” He says and I flip him off.

“Fuck off dude.” I tell him and the girl giggles a bit as we get in the gate.

“We never got introduced, I’m Vincent.” Louis says as he introduced me.

“What he said.” I tell her as she looked to me.

“I’m Clementine.” She says and I hold my hand out to her and she looked to my hand.

“It’s a handshake.” I said.

“I know what it is.” She says as she shakes my hand and I chuckle a bit.

“So, now that we have that out of the way, Vincent, you say my piano skills suck but Clem here and AJ loved my version of “Oh my Darling.” He says and I roll my eyes.

“The fact that she likes your singing is what scares me.” I said as I handed Omar the rabbits.

“Hey, her and AJ have great taste.” He said as I looked to him.

“Speaking of the little dude, where is he?” I asked as I looked around.

“Well he’s not near Ruby that’s for sure.” He says and I look to him.

“He may have bit her.” He says an I couldn’t help but chuckle just a bit.

“He bit her?” I asked.

“Yea, he said she touched him from behind and it freaks him out.” He says and I look around and find him with Clementine and Ruby.

“So, did he like the piano?” I asked as we sat near Tenn.

“Oh yea, he did kept him calm while you were gone.” He says and I look to him.

“That’s good.” I said and AJ walked over to us along with Clementine.

“Hey little dude.” I said as I held my hand up for a Hi-five which he gave me and I smirked a bit and looked up to Clementine.

“So, You’re the Famous Vincent?” She asked and I grabbed the collar of my vest and popped it a bit joking around.

“Sure am, sorry I can’t give you an autograph but Louis wasted all the sharpies for his adoring fans.” I said and he shaved me and I shoved him back a bit and I heard her giggle.

“So, what has Mr. Dreadlocks told you about me?” I asked.

“Oh, I only heard about you through AJ.” She says as she rubbed his head a bit.

“He plays the guitar, it’s really cool Clem.” He says and I smile.

“I can play some more after dinner.” I said and looked to her.

“So, was this like a musical school or something?” She asked.

“Did Marlon not explain?” I asked and she shook her head no.

“Not really, before he could that boy Willy said something and told me to find Louis.” She says and I nod.

“Well, this was a school for troubled youth, only Louis and I are the instrumental talents here, Tenn and…. Tenn is the artistic type, Aasim loves to write, Ruby is our doctor and garden expert, Willy is just… Willy, Mitch is our weapons master, aside from Marlon, Omar is the Chef god, and Brody is basically our mother.” I said.

“Hey.” I heard and looked to Brody.

“Well you know it’s true, you and Ruby are basically the mothers the scold us boys.” Louis says and I chuckle a bit. I look to Clementine as she looked around a bit.

“Marlon said there aren’t any adults around here.” She says and I nod.

“Well, unless you count Vincent here, since He’s eighteen, he’s the oldest one here.” Luis says and I lean back a bit.

“Really now?” She says and I nod.

“Yea, but Marlon has been in charge and I don’t want to interrupt his mojo at this point.” I explain as I watch AJ.

“So, you play the guitar?” She asked as she sat next to me and I nodded.

“So, let me guess… Country only?” She asked and I laughed.

“If you want country, sorry, not a huge fan, I just play… think of them as lullabies.” I said and she nods and I smile.

“Maybe we can both play for you.” Louis says and I nod as I look to Omar as he waves to us.

“Dinner is ready.” Willy calls out and we all get up and grab our bowls. I sit with Louis, AJ, Clem, Ruby, Brody and Marlon as the others sit at the other table. It wasn’t long till Ruby had left due to all of us, except for Brody, for burping and I chuckled as she flipped us off.

“Aww Ruby you wound me.” I said as she heads inside and I look at AJ who is looking at his bowl and Clem telling him that we spared as much as we could. I looked to my bowl and I hand it to him.

“Here kid.” I said.

“Are you sure?” Clem asked.

“Yea, been sharing with him since he woke up.” I said.

“What do you say to Vincent?” She asked him as he looked to me.

“Thank you.” He says and I nod as he eats again. It wasn’t long till he finishes again and went over to Tenn. Marlon, Louis and I grabbed the bowls as Louis grabbed his cards.

“Time for another game of cards my dear friends.” He says and Brody leaves.

“I’m heading out.” She says.

“Night.” We all say and I look to Clem. I then get up and grab my guitar and head back to my spot as I slowly strum the guitar strings and play a soft tune once again.

“Last time I heard someone play the guitar, way years ago.” She says and I look to her.

“Is that so?” Marlon asked as Louis passed out the cards.

“Yea, the mans name was Chuck, or Charles if you’re feeling fancy.” She says and I smile still strumming away and I look to see AJ swaying a bit as I played.

“Alright so the game for tonight is war.” Louis announced.

“How do you play?” Clem asked.

“Easy, highest card wins the others.” I said.

“But in this game, we get to ask questions, highest gets to ask Clem here a question.” Louis says.

“And if I win?” Clementine asked.

“Then you can ask us a question, only fair.” Louis says and I nod in agreement.

“Alright, lets play.” Marlon says as we flip our cards and I go back to my guitar.

“Victory Violet.” I muttered as I saw I had the highest card. I look up to Clem and think a bit.

“So… AJ…. Is he, you know, really your kid?” I asked.

“Like Blood related?” She asked and I nodded.

“No, he isn’t, his parents passed away a long time ago.” She says and I nod. We flip our cards again.

“Hey I win.” She says happily.

“Indeed, you do, ask away.” Louis says.

“Hmmm, grossest thing any of you guy’s eaten?” She asked.

“Oh easy, Horse Eyeball.” I say.

“Slugs.” Marlon tells her.

“Cantaloupe.” Louis says.

“Seriously.” I said.

“Dude, I fucking hate Cantaloupe.” He says and I roll my eyes.

“I almost ate a guys leg once.” She says and we all look at her.

“Almost.” She says and we nod as we flip our cards again and Louis has the high card.

“Booya I win.” He says.

“Ask away.” Clem says.

“Do you have a Boyfriend?” He asked.

“Oh my god.” I said and he looked at me.

“What? It’s a perfectly valid question, it happens, and you know it… and I haven’t had a girlfriend if you were wondering.” He says.

“Oh, I’m sure she’s real surprised at that.” I say.

“Hey you two.” Marlon says and we keep quiet and we look to Clem as she thinks.

“No, I think love is just a hassle.” She says.

“Oh, but the best kind, right?” Louis says.

“Well if getting someone killed because you were to busy screwing around instead of keeping watch, I’d say no, not the best kind.” She says and I stop playing my guitar as I look at her.

“I um… I didn’t mean.” Louis tried to say but couldn’t. We just flipped our cards again and Clementine got the highest.

“I win again.” She says.

“Oh, what shall we answer.” Louis says and she looked to Marlon.

“Got to know what’s with the haircut.” She says.

“What about it?” He asked.

“She says it looks like a dead cat, probably smells like one too.” I joked and he looked at me as I chuckled along with Louis.

“Well I say it looks cool.” He says and I laugh again. We flip the cards once more.

“Ok, you couldn’t have been all on your own.” Marlon asked his question and I looked to Clementine as she looked to him.

“Who raised you? Your parents?” He asked.

“No…. my parents were long gone, before I found them…. a man named Lee took care of me.” She says.

“What did he teach you?” he asked as I looked to her also wanting to know what she was going to answer. She looked deep in thought as her forehead creased a bit and she looked up at Marlon.

“How to let go.” She says. We flipped the cards again and it was Louis.

“Have you…. You know what never mind.”

“Ask.”

“It’s not a fun question.” He says to her.

“Just ask.” She says.

“You ever have to kill someone you loved?” he asked and I glared at him and he looked to me a bit scared and then back to Clem.

“Yea…. I did…. I’m going to head to bed now.” She says and I nod.

“Yea.” I said as she got up and went to AJ and took him inside.

“You wanted me to ask.” Louis says as Marlon looked to him.

“Neither of you should have asked her that.” I said.

“Look who’s talking.” Marlon said and I looked to him confused.

“All I asked is if AJ was actually hers or not.” I said.

“Yea but that brought up his parents, what if he heard.” Louis said and I rolled my eyes.

“I’m pretty sure she’s told him about his parents, it’s not like I asked if she shot them or something.” I said.

“Alright you two just drop it, and head to bed.” Marlon said and I rolled my eyes as I looked to Tenn. I went over to him as he continued to draw.

“Hey time for bed.” I say and he looks to me.

“Um sure but uh…. Could you get me Sophie's old coloring box? I just need some colors in there.” He said and I nodded as I headed to Minnie and Sophie's old room. I sigh gently as I go and open the door just to see Clementine and AJ in there.

“Oh, sorry didn’t know Marlon set you two in here.” I said.

“Is that ok?” Clementine asks and I nod.

“Yea, I uh didn’t mean to sound rude or anything about it, sorry.” I said as I rubbed my neck.

“Sorry.” She says and I sigh and look at the closet.

“I just need to grab something.” I said and I went to it but didn’t see Sophies coloring box, I looked around a bit and saw it on the desk and AJ was drawing.

“Oh uh… that’s what I’m looking for.” I say as I point to the box and AJ looks at me then to Clem.

“You should let him have it AJ.” She tells him and he sighs.

“Ok.” He says as he’s about to put the pencils up.

“You can finish your drawing first…. I’m not in any rush and I don’t think Tenn would mind, I mean it’s been sitting in that closet collecting dust for a year now.” I explain as I rub my neck a bit and AJ smiles as he continues to color.

“Thanks.” Clem says and I nod.

“So… How are you liking the school so far?” I asked.

“It’s ok, just a group of kids running this place? I haven’t seen that.” She says and I smirk.

“Yea, the adults left us here to fend for ourselves once hell broke loose, I mean one adult stayed though, Mrs. Martin.” I say as I walk over to one of the bunk beds and I sit down on it.

“That was brave of her.” She says and I nod.

“That’s how Ruby was able to patch you up as best as she could, Mrs. Martin use to be the school nurse…. And therapist or whatever.” I said and she looked at me.

“Not to be rude but how messed up are you guys? I mean you seem to be doing fine but do I have to worry?” She asked and I chuckled.

“No only thing you have to worry about is our foul language near him, and maybe a few of our brawls.” I say as I look at the window.

“Oh, don’t worry AJ has heard a lot of swearing in his life time, even though I tell him not to swear it slips sometimes and I can’t blame him.” She says and I nod.

“We tried to keep the swearing to a minimum, since Ruby and Tenn are the supposedly more mature ones out of us, they try to keep us in line with that.” I joke and she laughs a bit.

“God, I remember when I was young, I told people not to swear but damn look at me now.” She says and we laugh lightly.

“So, you have brawls? Over what?” She asked.

“Oh, you know stupid shi- stuff, like who gets to take down which walker or, who’s the strongest in the group, dumb teen stuff.” I said and she nods.

“So, was that why you guys are here? To many fights at normal schools?” She asked and I shook my head no.

“No, and it’s not my place to tell the others stories, we just hadn’t had the best life before the dead began walking.” I say as I look to her.

“So uh… who use to live in here?” She asked and I looked down.

“Um…. Tenns, sisters, they were twins.” I say.

“Oh…. What happened?” She asked and I stood up from the bed.

“They uh…. They died…. A year ago, Sophie was really artistic, loved to draw, and paint….. and Minerva… Minnie…. She uh… she use to sing, all bluesy you know.” I ramble a bit and looked to her as she looked back at me and I look to the wall.

“Um…. Walkers got them, they uh… they went out with Marlon and they didn’t come back.” I tell her.

“Muertos do suck.” She says and I chuckle.

“Muertos? Is that Spanish?” I ask and she nods.

“I’m not Mexican or Spanish, I just heard someone say it and it stuck with me.” She says and I nod a bit as I look to her.

“So, what does it mean?” I asked.

“Monsters, which is what AJ calls them.” She says as AJ sets his pencil down and smiles as he lifts his drawing up.

“Look I’m an artist.” He said as he showed Clementine the drawing and then Showed the drawing to me.

“That’s really good Kid, you’ll be one hell of an artist one day.” I said and he smiles.

“Can we put it up?” He asked and I look and find a tack and he hands, me the drawing and I pin it to the wall for him.

“There you go, so you and anyone that comes in here sees it.” I said and I look to see Clementine smiling and I rub my neck as he puts the colored pencils away in the box and I grab it gently.

“Um… nice chatting with you, and uh, keep up with the art.” I tell AJ and he nods and I walk out the room with the box in hand. I head back outside to Tenn to see him still drawing and I set the box down at the table and he looks up to me.

“Um, AJ was coloring, hope you didn’t mind the wait.” I say.

“No, it’s fine, it’s cool.” He says and I nod as I watch him draw.

“Do you still miss them?” Tenn asked and I look at him.

“Yea…. You?” I asked.

“Always, but they’re in a better place now, you know, they don’t have to deal with all this stuff…. I bet they would have loved to have met AJ and Clementine, especially Sophie.” Tenn says and I nod.

“Oh yea, she would have love to drawn with AJ, he’s pretty good.” I said remembering his drawing of Him and Clem on some ranch.

“They seem like good people, I mean, AJ needs to work with being around people, I heard he bit Ruby.” He says and I look to him.

“Damn.” I mutter and he nods.

“And Clementine, she could have hurt me but she didn’t, I mean, she was scared when she woke up, so I don’t blame her for what she did.” He said and I looked to him concerned.

“Don’t worry she apologized.” He said and I nodded and I heard some walkers as I look to the gate as Aasim got some with his arrows and Mitch had his knife.

“I’m glade.” I said.

“You know, it’s a good thing you saved them, I mean, we haven’t met any new people in so long, it’s good you know, now we get to hear new stories, and talk about new things.” He says and I nod.

“Yea you are right on that, it’s pretty nice to think we have something new to do here.” I said.

“Marlon is thinking about making the safe zone smaller.” Tenn says and I sigh.

“I… I know he has his intentions but damn it.” I mumbled.

“Vi.” He says and I look to him as he used my old nickname.

“Sorry.” He says.

“It’s fine, only you can call me that really.” I said as I rubbed my arm.

“Want to talk?” He asked and I rub my face.

“Need to find a new razor soon.” I joked as I touched my beard a bit, it wasn’t to long to be a bushy beard just kind of there you know.

“Yea me too.” He said as he touched his smooth jaw as he joked and I laughed a bit.

“Don’t worry, I can teach ya how to shave without shaving cream, but it’s going to be a pain.” I said as I looked to Mitch and them.

“So, you plan on playing your guitar a lot now?” He asked as he drew some more.

“If it keeps AJ out of trouble sure.” I say as I watch him draw a house.

“Yea, don’t need him to be scared anymore.” He says and I nod.

“Well, I should head to bed, got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.” I say as I get up.

“Night Vinc.” He says and gives me a hug and I hug him back then head off to my room. I take my shirt off and stretch a bit as I look at the window, Least I wasn’t dumb enough to break my windows, so if people ever need to stay warm they can come in here, it does get really hot in the summer though but at least I can open the window to let the cool air in. I go and lay on my bed and place my hands together on my stomach as I look to the celling and see the fake stars that Minnie, Sophie and I had placed on there when I first came to this school. Sophie had arranged them to where there was the big dipper, little dipper, and even her name if you really look at them. I sigh a bit as I look at them more and I close my eyes a bit, listening to whatever was making noise this night, which was mostly walkers growling, or bugs making sounds, to the wind blowing against the window.


	2. Fear the Living More

(Vincent’s Pov)

The night had left us quickly only to be replaced by the sun shining bright and high in the sky. I had gotten up from my bed as I woke myself up, after years of waking up early we didn’t need our old clocks to wake us up anymore. I slowly got out of the bed and grabbed my shirt and vest jacket as I walked out the room to see Clementine going up the stairs.

“Morning.” I say and she turns to me then away.

“Sorry um shirt.” She mumbles and I chuckle as I put my shirt on along with my vest as I come up the stairs.

“You looking for Marlon?” I asked and she nods.

“He told me to meet him in his office.” She says and I nod as I go up the stairs with her and take her to Marlon’s office. When we got in we saw AJ and Tenn arguing a bit.

“You don’t even know what it is.” Tenn says as he tried to grab something from AJ’s hand.

“Whoa, keep the peace, what’s going on” I asked.

“This is mine.” AJ says as he shows the toy.

“AJ, I didn’t teach you to act like this.” Clementine says and I look to her and then to AJ who looked down at the ground.

“AJ that’s Tenns’ give it back.” She says and I watch as He hands the toy back and he runs out the room. I rub my neck a bit not really understanding on what to do at this point.

“Sorry he just…. I’m sorry.” She says and I look to Tenn as he picked up his toys and left, saying something about how he’s going to go find Marlon or something.

“It’s fine, he hasn’t really been around kids so he doesn’t know how to share.” I said.

“No, he’s been around kids but…. They didn’t really share, or that’s what he’s told me.” She says and crosses her arms and I look to her a bit confused.

“You’ve been around more kids?” I asked as I lean on the desk and cross my arms as she looked to me then at the floor.

“Not really…. It’s not a story I like to tell.” She says.

“You don’t have to, you don’t need to feel obligated to tell me or anyone about yourself, same with us though, I mean I haven’t told you everything about me so, fair is fair.” I explained and she nods her head as I watch her more.

“I… I’d like to tell you guys someday, but AJ and I might be gone before we get that fair.” She says and I look at her a bit.

“Gone?” I ask.

“Well, we tend to not stay in a place for too long, either Walkers come tear it down or the living get to snooping.” She says.

“Oh no one can find this place unless they get lost in the woods or we forgot to take a sign down.” I tell her as she looks around.

“I mean, we’ve lasted what? Eight years with not having to deal with people.” I said and she giggles a bit.

“God it’s been that long hu?” She asked and I nodded.

“Yea, Aasim likes to keep track of dates, so it’s been eight years.” I say as she takes her cap off her head.

“You want to know something about me?” She asked as I look at her cap.

“Sure.”

“But in return you have to tell me something about yourself.” She says and I nod.

“Basically, like twenty questions, but we say one thing about ourselves.” She says and I nod as I look to her face as she caresses a section of her hat, it looked to be mud.

“Alright, seems fair.” I say.

“…. This hat has been with me for the past eight years…. It belonged to my dad.” She says as she placed it back onto her head and she looked to me.

“To think, he said I could borrow the cap, not keep it.” She says and I nod as I mess with the name plate that Marlon wrote his name on.

“It’s good to have something of your parents though, not a lot of us could say that.” I say as I hold the name plate and see my reflection. My mother always loved how my eyes were like hers, the greenish blue color she loved so much.

“Not like any of us really care once the adults left us to die, and our parents haven’t come to… to save us… but I like to think of it as a good thing, we might have died out there a long time ago if any of our parents had the common decency to save the kids they had.” I said as I placed the name plate back onto the desk.

“I’m sorry.” She says and I wave it off.

“Don’t be, least we can say that our parents did one good thing for us.” I say and I see the door open and in walks Rosie, Marlon’s dog, well the deans old dog. I look to see Clementine backing up a bit with fear in her eyes and I look to Rosie and back to her, finally my brain clicked as I went over to Clementine to try and calm her down and I hushed Rosie.

“Hey it’s fine, Rosie is a really good dog.” I said and Clementine looks at me. I get a good look at her eyes. A beautiful amber color.

“I uh… had a really bad experience with a dog once.” She says and I nod.

“That must have been scary.” I say and she nods.

“But Rosie is a good dog, she’s been with us since we were little, old girl is more bark than bite…. Well unless she’s killing walkers.” I say and I see Clementine shake a bit.

“Want to get over your fear? Or I could send her out?” I ask her and she looks to Rosie a bit and then at me.

“I don’t know.” She says and I nod.

“Here.” I said and grabbed her hand gently as I look to her.

“Just hold your hand out to her and let her sniff your hand, she wont bite I swear.” I tell her and she looks at me.

“If she does… I’m going after you.” She says and I chuckle a bit as I hold her hand out to Rosie. She sniffed Clementine’s hand a bit and I felt Clem’s hand shaking so I slowly moved her hand away from Rosie and I look to Clementine.

“See, not so bad?” I asked and she nods a bit.

“Now that she has your sent, do this.” I say as I whistle and make a fist. Rosie then sits and I look to Clementine who was a bit amazed by this.

“Now just tell her to lay down, and make sure to whistle too.” I explain. Clementine does just that and Rosie listens to her as she goes to lay on the mattress. I look to Clementine as she smiles and looks at Rosie a bit more then I hear the door open and I turn to see Marlon walking in.

“Oh Vincent, didn’t know you would be here.” He says and I nod.

“Just showing Clementine where your office was, I’ll be on my way.” I say and he nods as I look to Clementine and we nod as I head out the office. I went outside to see AJ and Tenn playing with the toys again and I walk over to them.

“What going on?” I asked as I sat on the dirt floor with them.

“AJ is saving people from the fire.” Tenn says as I look to see a firefighter in AJ’s hand.

“Tenn said I could have it.” He says and I look to Tenn who nods.

“That was very nice of you Tenn, did you thank him AJ?” I asked and they both nodded and I smile as I picked up a police car.

“Tenn said that, that’s a police car…. What is a police?” AJ asked and I look to him as I set the toy down and roll it a bit.

“They use to be really good people, they uh… they tried to help people when the world went to hell.” I tried to explain.

“Why aren’t they here than?” He asked and I rubbed my neck.

“They were the first to go, but we didn’t know about these things being dead or if you get bit you turn, and all this other junk, they helped as many people as they could but…. There was nothing we could really do.” I tried to explain.

“So, they were weak?” He asked.

“No not at all, we just didn’t know what was going on when this all began, the only reason we know now is because we learned over time.” I said and he looked to me a bit confused and I sighed a bit. I looked over to the school as I heard the doors open and I see Clementine walk out as she looked around her eyes landed on me as she walked over to us.

“Hey, I’m going to head out to the fishing shack with you and Brody if that’s ok.” She says and I nod.

“Oh of course um… we’ll head out in a bit, uh after breakfast.” I say and she nods as I look to AJ and Tenn.

“Clem can you tell Vincent that the police were weak if they died so fast.” AJ says and her eyes go wide at that.

“Well, seems I have bad news for you AJ, but I was helped by a police officer when all this started.” She says and he looked to her.

“He was just lucky, not stupid like the others.” He says.

“AJ.” She says and he looks at her and she sighs.

“AJ people consider you weak because you’re a kid, when I was younger children were killed off in communities.” She says and he looks at her a bit scared as she nods her head and he looks down.

“I’m sorry.” He says quietly and she nods. We all went and had some breakfast which was just last nights dinner, it does get a bit boring eating the same thing over and over again, but it’s new for Clementine and AJ, so we can’t really complain. Once we finished and I hand the plates to Willy who went to go clean them, I took Clementine and AJ over to the gate with Brody waiting for us. We grab our weapons and I see that AJ has a small revolver with him and I shake my head a bit as we walk. I know Clem saw me because she asked me what.

“Nothing.” I say as we walk.

“You have an issue with him holding a gun too?” She asked and I looked at her.

“Too?” I asked.

“Louis wasn’t to happy to see me hand it to AJ.” She says and I look to the boy as he tried to talk with Brody, asking questions like, how big the woods are, how long will it take us to get to the shack, what type of fish are there, what is a fish.

“Vincent has never liked guns.” Brody says and I glare at her as Clementine laughed a bit and I glare at her as well and shake my head.

“Yea well, you’d fucking hate guns too if you saw what I did.” I said and Clem stops.

“What? I’ve seen people get shot right in the head for doing nothing, try me.” She says and I look to her and shake my head as I walked ahead of them. Why try and tell someone something about yourself if it doesn’t matter to them now.

“Oh, come on Vincent it’s not that bad.” I heard but didn’t respond as I kept walking.

“Well since Mr. Debby Downer isn’t going to talk let’s change the topic.” Brody says. She doesn’t even know why I hate guns, fuck her, she’s making me look like a fool.

“Sure.” Clem says and I listen in as AJ walks next to me copying the way I walk; my back was slouched a bit so I stood taller and he did the same. I held my left arm out and he did the same and I smirked as I set my left arm down and raised my right hand up and flipped off Brody who gasped as AJ did the same and I laughed really hard.

“Hey, don’t do that.” I say and he looks to me.

“But you did it.” He says and I laugh some more.

“No, it’s a bad thing, you basically said the F-word.” I explain to him and he looks at me with wide eyes and I chuckle as he apologizes to Clementine and Brody and I roll my eyes a bit. We walked some more and Brody asked a ridiculous question as we got to the truck.

“So, if you could go anywhere in the world where would you go?” She asked and I just listened in.

“Hmmm, I would probably head to the coast, you know, sunshine and the ocean.” She says and I look to her and we finally get to the shack and I go in and grab the spears as I come out, I hum just a bit as I look around the woods and hand them the spears.

“I’m going to go check on the traps down the stream while ya’ll can fish a bit.” Brody says and I nod a bit as I take Clementine and AJ over to the river and I look at the fish as they swim up the stream. AJ then runs over to the other side of the stream and I look at him then to Clementine who watches him.

“He’s ok.” I say as she looked up to me and nods as she looks to the water and she sends the spear into the water and gets a fish.

“Awesome shot.” I say and look at the water myself as I put it in the water and I snag a fish myself and I chuckle.

“Amazing shot.” She says and I nod as we continue to fish, it was a good few minutes before the fish had wizened up and began swimming the other direction or away from us so we couldn’t get any more for food. Clementine got three fish, AJ caught one and I only got one. Brody wasn’t to successful with the trap and I rub my neck as I look to them.

“We should go check on the boys.” Brody says and I nod as I pick up the bucket as Brody puts the spears back and look to her.

“The Grand Canyon.” I mumble.

“Pardon?” Brody asks.

“If we could go anywhere in the world, I’d like to see the Grand Canyon.” I say as I keep walking.

“That sounds like a good place.” She says and I nod.

“My grand…. my grandparents wanted to take me there once but uh… never got to.” I say as I remember the money jar that they had at the side of their bed for when we saved enough to actually go. We walked all the way to the hunting areas and I look around and I see a walker hanging on the rope like a piñata, dead.

“Jesus fuck.” I say as I look at it.

“Is this what you guys do when you’re bored?” Clementine asked and I shook my head no.

“No.” Brody says as she looks at the walker and I set the bucket down and loosen the rope on the Walker and it drops to the ground and I pull it off to the side and away from the traps. I see Clem bend down and grab something and looks at it.

“What did you find?” Brody asks and I come up to Clementine.

“Do any of the kids smoke?” She asked and I rubbed my neck a bit.

“Nothing to uh smoke really.” I say as she shows the cigarette and it looks like an old bible page.

“Hu, so do you guys have any neighbors?” She asked and we looked at each other than to her.

“No, we never saw anyone around here for the past eight years.” Brody says and I nod as I look around and hear something as I look to the side and I pull my knife out just to see Aasim and Louis.

“Hey what’s up?” Louis asked and we look at everyone.

“Someone tampered with the traps and left a walker dangling in one of them.” I explained and they looked at us shocked.

“They left a cigarette.” AJ says and we all nod.

“Look I’ll head back to the school and explain all this to Marlon, if there’s people out there he needs to know now.” She says panicked and I nod.

“Yea, yea, Um Aasim go with her and give Omar the food, uh we can try to find some more or something.” I say and he nods as he grabs the bucket and hare then Brody and him head to the direction of the school and I think.

“So, what are we going to do eat rocks?” Louis says.

“You can’t eat rocks.” AJ says.

“I’m aware.” Louis responds and I rub my face a bit.

“Let’s check the map.” I hear Clem say as she pulls the map out and we look at it.

“We could head to the train station, when AJ and I were there, there was some food.” She says.

“That’s outside the safe zone.” I say and she looks at me.

“It’s either that or we starve at this point.” She says and I nod as look to them.

“Ok, fine, let’s go.” I say as we all begin to follow her. It was getting dark out by the time we had gotten to the train station and I see walkers like crazy just walking around the area, they bumped into each other not caring about what just happened, they growled or gargled out noises and it sent a chill down my spine but I kept a strait face as we bent down and kept hidden from the Walkers.

“Ok we need to distract the Walkers; I’ll go up and see what we can use.” Clementine whispers and we all nod as she climbed up the ruble and I watched her as she looked around and then pointed to the bell then headed back to us.

“There’s a bell over there, we could use that to make some noise and get the walkers to go over to there while the rest of us go into the train station and grab the food the person can go up on those trailers to be safe and I can give a signal so they can move the walkers farther away from us.” She explains and I nod.

“I could do it.” I offer as I go and grab the bell and hold the part that hits against the inside of the bell so it won’t make any sound.

“I can, I’m faster.” Louis says as he grabs the bell from me and I didn’t argue, I just wanted to get this done and over with and head back to the school as soon as we could.

“Alright fine, just don’t die.” I say and he nods as he heads away and not long there was a banging sound of the bell and Louis talking smack to the Walkers and I rub my head as he tried to play jingle bells. Clementine and AJ began to walk and I was behind them so I could get any walkers from the back that tried to sneak up on us. We quickly got to a hiding spot and Clem signaled for Louis to move and we waited. As we did, I saw the Walkers coming close to us and I clenched my butcher knife tightly in my hand ready to stab a Walker in the head if they got to close.

“Come on Louis.” I mumbled.

“Give him time.” She says and nod and then hear the bell again and I sigh in relief as we slowly move from our spots and we all head into the train station and I wave to Louis and I look to see two walkers in the building as they groan at me and I clench my Knife.

“Don’t kill them, they asked to be like that.” AJ says as he looks to the walkers and I look to him and I shake my head a bit. They head to the back and I follow as I see Clem lift up the trap door in the floor and AJ heads in. I see a few duffle bags so I grabbed some and I set them next to her and she looks to me.

“Exciting right?” She asked and I look to her.

“Scary, and my adrenaline is high so…. Yea I guess.” I say as I see AJ pop his head up from the ground and place a jar on the floor and Clem praises him as he goes and gets some more. We almost had all three bags filled before I looked up and saw a shadow and I stood up.

“Louis?” I asked. I got my answer when a strange man came through the door pointing his gun at me and I glare at him.

“Well, didn’t think I’d see a few kids out there but shit.” He says as he puts a cigarette to his mouth and takes a long draw from it and breaths out the smoke. I watch him carefully as he keeps his gun on me and I see Clementine get up slowly, AJ hasn’t come back up yet and I hope he’d stay down once he heard the man.

“The hell do you want?” I ask and he glared at me.

“Well that isn’t nice…. And I’m looking for food too.” He says as he looks to our bags and I clench my Knife.

“Don’t even think about it kid, it’s not worth getting yourself killed for.” He says as he places his finger on the trigger of his pistol and I watch him as he comes up to us and is about to grab on of our bags.

“That’s ours.” I say.

“No, it’s not, ain’t no ones.” He says and AJ pops up as he placed another jar of food down and he looks at the man.

“Well hello Squirt.” The man says as he points his gun at AJ.

“Don’t.” I say and the man looks up to me and stands up.

“And what are you going to do?” He says as he moves the gun to me and places it under my chin and I don’t move. I breath a bit and watch him as he smirks at me.

“Ain’t so tough, now are you?” He asked laughing a bit and then I hear another click and see AJ pointing his gun at the man.

“Well you ain’t nice.” The man says as he looks to AJ. Then to me.

“Got to have a tot fight for you?” He asked me and I glare at him more.

“Drop the gun kid, or your friend here gets his head blown.” The man says and I just glare at him. The next thing I know is that the man was shoved away from me and out the window into the walkers and I just stared as the man struggled and I looked to Clementine who is also shocked at what she had done.

“Grab the bags and go.” She says and I help AJ out and I grab two bags and she grabbed one. We all run out the building just in time to see Louis and we all start to run to the school. We get to the halfway mark before we slowed down and I took a few deep breaths as tried to calm my racing heart.

“What happened?” Louis asked as he looked to me and grabbed a bag.

“Fucking…. Guy was there…. Tried to…. Fucking hell.” I said trying to catch my breath.

“There was a strange man trying to take the food, he pointed a gun at Vincent, and then Clem pushed him out the window.” AJ says and I nod and point to AJ.

“What he said.” I groan a bit as I get up and I grab the bag and I we start walking to the school again. It didn’t take long and for us to get to the gate and I see Brody talking with Marlon as I open the gate for the others.

“Took Ya’ll long enough.” I hear ruby say and watch as Louis and Clem place their bags on the table.

“How poor are they that have not Patience?” Louis says and I go and place the last bag on the table as well as the others talk to Clementine.

“Where did you get all this?” Brody asked and I looked to her.

“At the train station, Clem knew where it was.” Louis says.

“Wait… that’s outside the safe zone, you put them in danger?” Brody says to Clementine and I get in front of her.

“No, I did because I agreed to it, and we would have had more food had some creepy guy not shown up.” I said and she looked at me.

“What did he look like?” She asked and I looked to her.

“Weird backwoods looking hillbilly, why?” I asked and she looked to Clementine.

“Did he follow you?” She asked as she looked to us.

“No, I shoved him into a pack of walkers.” Clem explained.

“Why would you do that, what if he had a group of people, they’ll come looking for us now, damn it.” She says pissed and I look at her.

“If I didn’t do what I did, he would have killed Vincent, that fucker had his gun on him.” Clem says and Brody puts her hand to her head.

“So, what you don’t just.”

“SO WHAT?!” I asked pissed off and she looked to me.

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” I yell as I glare at her and she looks down.

“I didn’t mean it like that, I… we just don’t kill people Vincent and you know it.” She says.

“Oh, but it would be fine and fucking dandy if I had my god damn brains blown onto the walls of a dirty train station, right? Cause clearly that strangers safety seems to be more of an importance to you than someone you’ve lived with for the past ten fucking years.” I say as my hands go into a fist. I wanted to punch her so badly but I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.

“Vincent, she didn’t mean it like that calm down.” I heard Louis say and I held my breath a bit and unclenched my fists.

“Clem just doesn’t know how bad the people really are out there.” Marlon said.

“Excuse you?” Clementine says and I rub my face.

“Well you did just push a guy into a heard of walkers, look you did save Vincent but he should have never needed any saving had you stayed in the safe zone, that’s why we have it.” He says.

“Look not to be rude in any way, but fuck that safe zone bullshit, nowhere is safe, Christ that strange man was the one who fucked with the traps, he was smoking.” She says.

“Lot of adults smoke Clem.” Aasim says and she looks at all of them and I sigh.

“No it was him, they were pages from a bible, that’s what the man smoked with, and even if he did bum it off someone he was associated with someone who does it, regardless that man or his group have been in the safe zone where the traps are, hell they could have been at the fishing shack too.” I say as I look to them all and cross my arms and slouch a bit as I think.

“Look we can deal with all this later…. Clem, I know I asked for help and you did… you really did, but I just worry about my people.” Marlon says to her.

“I didn’t mean to break your rules.” She says and he nods as he heads off to talk with Brody about something. I look to Clem who looks at the bags of food and I come up to her.

“For what it’s worth, you taking the risk just to help us out should give you a premiant residence here.” I say and she looks to me.

“I don’t stay in places to long.” She says.

“Well, you could come and visit, the gates always open.” I say and she nods as she heads over to AJ and Tenn. I look over to Marlon as I go up to him.

“You do know that she’s probably seen more fucked up shit than we ever will, right?” I asked and he looked to me.

“It was the heat of the moment, I didn’t mean for it to sound that way, but you have to understand Violet…. Vincent, I mean…. I just don’t want anything bad happening to anyone here.” He says and I nod a bit understanding what he was talking about.

“Yea ok I understand…. Is there anything else that needs to be done?” I ask and as Marlon is about to talk Omar calls out for dinner and he looks t me.

“We can talk about it tomorrow, right now relax and unwind.” He says and I nod as we head to the tables and we eat our food, it was actually good to have some rice this time and not just rabbit stew, no offence to Omar and all but changing up the meals makes it better.

“Tomorrow we need to go back to the traps and fix any of them, and then…. MAYBE not to sure but maybe…. Vincent and I could head into the town to look for more supplies.” Marlon says and I nod a bit as we eat.

“Sounds like a plan.” I say and he nods as well. We all finish dinner and I see AJ along with Clem walking into the school most likely heading to bed so I hurry and follow them. I get close to Clementine and she stops abruptly and I crash into her but I was able to catch her before she fell. I look at her and can’t help but stare at her beautiful eyes.

“Um… thanks for the catch but uh.” She was saying and I lift her up a bit and I pull back.

“Sorry um, just wanted to say good night, and uh… might not see you tomorrow if Marlon decides that we can go into the town.” I say and she looks at me and nods a bit.

“Alright, Good-Night Vincent… and thanks for sticking up for me back there.” She says and I rub my neck and I do get a bit embarrassed but why?

“Oh, it was nothing plus it was partially my fault for allowing it, can’t let the new kid take the blame all to herself.” I say and she giggles a bit and I smile at her. I realize that I’m acting a bit foolish by repeating but my brain is just doing it on its own and making words just spew out my mouth.

“Good night.” I say.

“Sleep tight.” She says.

“Don’t let the walkers bite.” AJ says and I look at him.

“And if they try?” Clem asked him and AJ made a gun shape with his hands.

“Bang.” He says as he heads into the room and Clem smiles a bit and looks to me.

“it’s our thing.” She says and I nod in understanding.

“Yea it’s pretty cool.” I say and she nods then heads into her room and I go walk off to mine. Once in there I take my jacket off along with my shirt as I go and lay on my bed and I slowly close my eyes and drift to sleep. I don’t think I got to sleep long due to the fact that I’m woken up to the sounds of yelling so I sit up a bit and look out my window to see AJ with a gun pointing it at Marlon so I hurry and put my shirt and jacket on then run outside.

“The hell is going on here?” I ask as more kids show up.

“Where is Clementine?” AJ demands and I look around to not see the teenager in sight so I look to Marlon as he looks around at us.

“She… She’s in the basement, she murdered Brody.” He says and my eyes go wide in shock and I shake my head at this. It can’t be true.

“Dude is that blood on your face?” I hear Aasim ask and I look more closely at Marlon’s face to in fact see blood splatter on his face.

“That’s bullshit Marlon.” I hear and we all turn to look at Clementine as she throws something like a flashlight to the ground.

“You killed Brody, you hit her so hard that her head split open.” Clem says as she walks up to us.

“No, she’s lying…. I saw you kill her.” Marlon says pointing at Clementine as the rain began to fall soaking us.

“Look at her hands, they’re covered in Brody’s blood.” Marlon says and I see her hands covered in blood and she does look a bit shocked but also scared. The next thing I know Marlon charges at AJ and shoves him to the ground and I go to help AJ up as Marlon raises the revolver in the air.

“Look at what they’ve done, after all we’ve done for them, guns being pulled along with murder.” Marlon says and then points the gun at Clem and I hold AJ back as he tried to go to her.

“Don’t you find it weird that once these two arrive, a strange man just appears and takes our food from our hunting grounds, and also meets you at the train station.” Marlon says as he looks to Louis and I.

“And she takes you two outside the safe zone as well.” He says.

“I agreed to it, you going to say I was working with her too?” I ask and he looks to me.

“She knew she wasn’t supposed to go there, but she got you to agree to it.” He says.

“You want to know why he killed Brody? Because she told me that Marlon knows the man at the train station, he killed her because she knew about it, Minerva and Sophie weren’t killed by walkers Marlon had traded them to a bunch of fucking raiders.” Clem says.

“SHUT UP!” Marlon yells and I look at him.

“Is that true?” I asked and he looked at me.

“Of course not, you of all people should know that Vincent, why would I kill Brody for something like that? I would tell you guys if raiders were here.” He says. But I can’t trust him, it doesn’t feel right at all right now.

“Vincent you have to believe me.” Clem says and I look to her, the rain was pouring harder and I looked to both of them.

“You don’t, you meet her two days ago.” Marlon says and I shake my head at both of them.

“I… fuck.” I say and I look at her.

“Clem I… I don’t know you.” I say.

“I know you aren’t weak Vincent, think about it, he was going to take you into the town tomorrow, just think.” She says and I do think a bit and I look up to them as I sigh and let go of AJ who doesn’t do anything and I grab my knife as I look to Marlon as he points the gun at me.

“Violet being difficult, why am I not surprised.” He says a bit pissed as he used my old name, but right now I didn’t care.

“You gave my sisters away?” Tenn asked as he looked to Marlon, I still had my knife drawn just in case he tried anything.

“I… Tenn…. You have to realize I was protecting all of you.” He says and I glare at him.

“So, you gave up the twins? That’s fucking low, you have no fucking idea what they did or are doing to them.” Mitch says and I nod as Marlon still has his gun on me. It was better to have it just on me though and him not waving it around at anyone else.

“Dude… that’s fucked.” Louis says. After a while Marlon threw the gun to the side as we came up close to him, he looks at us scared.

“Look we can lock you in the basement for no-.” Clem tried to say but the next thing we all know is that there was a loud bang as we see a hole right between Marlon’s eyes as blood sprays on me as I catch him and set him on the floor. We all look in shock as we see AJ with the gun as he looks to us scared.

“What? I aimed for the head.” He says scared that what he did was wrong. And right now. It was wrong.


	3. Making a Hard Choice

(Vincent’s Pov)

I just stared at the blood on my hands as at the rain kept falling. I looked down to Marlon’s body laying on the ground and I quickly back away from him. I hear Ruby yelling something about bandages but that wasn’t going to help him, he’s gone, he’s dead, he’s not coming back not even as a Walker. I stand up and look around and see AJ scared as he lowered the gun and I look to everyone.

“WHAT THE FUCK!?” Louis yells and I look to him as he glared at AJ then to Clementine who looked at AJ. Was that fear in her eyes?

“A-AJ what did you do?” She asked him as he looked at her. He looked so confused at what was going on.

“He killed Marlon, he’s a murderer, what the hell have you been teaching him?” Louis asked pissed as he came up to Clementine and I got between them.

“Don’t…. fucking don’t.” I say as I don’t look at anyone. I can’t look at anyone.

“She taught him to kill innocent people Violet.”

“Who the hell is Violet?” Clementine asked and I glare at Louis.

“Look right now let’s not do anything rash.” I say as I look at him and he looks back at me.

“RASH?” He yelled, his voice breaking.

“He killed Marlon, she taught him to kill, they both need to go now.” He says and I look at him then I see Mitch as he moved to AJ so I quickly go over to them and I hold my knife tightly at him.

“Mitch just back away from the kid ok, we will all talk about this just-.”

“JUST WHAT RELAX?” He yelled at me and I watch him.

“We let them in and they do this type of shit, what happens if we do something else that this kid doesn’t like, should we expect a bullet to the fucking head.” Louis says and I look to AJ who was scared and I turn to face him.

“AJ give me the gun.” I say to him gently and he looked to me as I bend down in front of him and he points the gun up a bit.

“Vince.” I hear Ruby say scared and I just look at AJ.

“AJ… I won’t hurt you…. Just give me the gun, I’ll give it back I promise.” I say to him gently. I am terrified having a gun on me but right now I can’t show that.

“They will.” He says quietly. I look to the school kids and then to Clem who looked to AJ then Marlon, then back. Everything is fucked right now, she has to be confused, everything went by so fast.

“I won’t let them, just please give me the gun AJ, then you and Clem can go to ya’lls room.” I tell him.

“Keep the killer where we sleep how fucking nice.” Louis says.

“SHUT UP!” I yell at him and then look back at AJ as he slowly and shakenly places the gun into my hand. I see how small he really is, how scared he is.

“Clementine take AJ to your room while we figure things out.” I say as she looks to me and nods just a bit as she goes and takes AJ to their room. I made sure that no one left the area to follow them and I look at the gun and open it to see one bullet left. I take it out and place it in my vest pocket and the gun in my pant pocket. I look to the others as they try to help Marlon but there was no use in it.

“How fucked up are you Vincent?” Louis says pissed as I look to him.

“We don’t fucking kill people, we don’t hurt kids, you want to talk about fucked up, what about the fact that Marlon admitted to giving away Tenns sisters, to a bunch of fucking raiders.” I say.

“We could have talked about it.” He said

“TALKED? He was willing to shoot me.” I say.

“He didn’t.” Louis says.

“Happy fucking days, he didn’t shoot me, but that still doesn’t erase the whole facts that he gave away Sophie and Minerva, shit he killed Brody…. BRODY is dead because of him.” I say.

“Clementine could have lied.” He says.

“Then where the fuck did the blood on his face come from? Because if he saw Clementine killing her, why the fuck did he not stop her hu? Why didn’t he rush out with Brody in his arms and why didn’t he call for fucking help?” I say and Louis looked to me as I asked these questions.

“He was scared.”

“And you think AJ isn’t? you want to beat a little kid be my fucking guest but you’ll have to go through me to do so.” I tell him and he looked to me. He walked away and headed over to Marlon and I shook my head as the rain started to lighten up and the sun started to raise up to signal It was morning.

“Vincent.” I heard as I looked to Tenn as he came up to me.

“We need to bury them.” I say and I head inside and go to their rooms and grab their bed sheets I came out and handed Louis one for Marlon and I looked to the basement as I went to get Brody. I go down the stairs and I’m glad no one followed me. They didn’t need to see Brody like this, her head was bashed in and there was a lot of blood on the floor surrounding her. I took a few breaths as I slowly wrapped her up in the sheet so no one could see what she looked like. I slowly picked her up and walked up the stairs from the basement to the outside and I didn’t see anyone.

“They must be digging the graves.” I say to no one in particular. I slowly set Brody down on the ground and I look to the school building and I hear some talking through the broken windows.

“AJ stop it you’ll break a toe or something.” I hear Clementine say to him. What is the boy doing that could cause him to break a toe?

“Am I a murderer?” I heard and I shook my head a bit. I shouldn’t listen to this so I pick up Brody and I take her over to our graveyard. I look to see the others digging the graves and I set Brody down away from Marlon’s body and I begin to help them. We all keep quiet as we just dig, using a few bowls and cups to dig. I don’t see Louis doing anything but stare at Marlon’s body and I sigh as we finish up the holes. Mitch and I get out of the holes and he grabbed Marlon while I got Brody. We set them in their graves and Aasim and Omar cover them up. I see Tenn and Willy place the crosses behind the graves. I cross my arms and sigh as I look to them and Tenn comes over to me.

“Tenn, can you get Clem and AJ?” I asked and I felt eyes on me.

“You’re going to let them come the fuck?” Mitch says.

“They knew Brody, didn’t they? They aren’t coming for Marlon, so drop it, Brody liked them too.” I say as I look to her grave. I see Tenn walk away to the school to grab the two.

“Vincent.” I heard as I look to Ruby.

“Just everyone keep quiet and don’t start anything, this is a funeral and we all will be respectful, that’s all I’m asking.” I say as I look back to Brody’s grave. Willy was crying a bit and I crossed my arms a bit as I looked to Rosie who was sitting next to me. I hear some footsteps as see Tenn walking over to us.

“They’ll be here in a bit.” He explains and I nod as I look to them.

“Shit… what do we do again?” Ruby asked.

“Place flowers on the grave, sing… I think… talk.” I say and she looked to me and I rub my neck.

“Oh god, they’re here.” I hear Aasim say.

“Drop it.” I tell them and he looked to me shocked. I looked to Brody’s grave and I sighed.

“Brody… will be missed, she was loved by all, and she…. She.” I tried to say but there’s nothing to say really. She’s gone, she was killed by her friend, someone we thought of as family, someone we’ve known for years and he killed her just because she was worried for not only our safety but for Clementine and AJ’s safety as well.

“She was a wonderful woman… she didn’t deserve to die the way she did.” I say and I hear some feet shuffling and I shake my head. I look to Marlon’s grave and I was about to speak but I had nothing good to say.

“Marlon…. He….. fuck I can’t do it someone else can.”

“Fucking bitch.” Mitch says and I look at him.

“Dude.” Louis says.

“He was your god damn friend louis, your best friend, and that kid killed him.” Mitch complains and I look to him.

“And Brody was mine but Marlon killed her.” I tell him.

“You didn’t even like Brody, you were always mean to her.” Willy says and I glare at him.

“You don’t know shit Willy, you can’t say that I was mean to her when you were never around us all the time, you never asked questions, none of us did, and because of that Brody was killed by Marlon, and Marlon was shot in the head, Karma is a major fucking bitch to people, so everyone shut the fuck up.” I say and they all look at me, some not to happy with what I said but I don’t care at all.

“Sophie and Minerva are gone because of Marlon, Brody found out some way somehow, regardless of the situation Marlon killed Brody for talking about how OUR safety was in danger because Marlon was probably going to trade me off in the morning and say the same damn lie.” I tell them.

“I can’t deal with this.” Louis says and he walks away and I shake my head.

“I don’t care about the what ifs at this point, AJ killed Marlon, they have to go.” Mitch says.

“The fuck?” I asked.

“We take a Vote, either they stay or go, they can’t stay here.” Mitch says and I glare at him.

“Fine we’ll do the stupid voting bullshit, but if they leave, they get a duffle bag of the food, they fucking got it, they fucking keep it.” I say and he glared at me.

“Don’t kick us out, I’ll atone.” AJ says and I look to him sadly.

“AJ.” I say.

“You don’t get a say in this.” Mitch tells him and I clench my hand into a fist and shake my head and I look to Clementine. She kept quiet for a bit before she placed a hand on AJ’s shoulder.

“AJ, it’s their home, we have no say in this.” She explains to him and they head off to their room and I look at Tenn.

“Louis needs to vote; can you get him please?” I asked and he nods as he goes to find the boy. I look to everyone as we all start to think on what we’re going to say.

“I vote they leave.” Mitch says and I roll my eyes.

“I vote they stay.” I heard Aasim say and I look to him.

“The fuck?” Mitch says.

“Like it or not dude but Clementine would be a good thing around here, she got us food, she helped us right after she woke up, you think I didn’t see the bandages on her head still? She’s a bad ass person, who helped us not even knowing who we were.” He says and I nod a bit.

“Fine whatever my vote still stays.” Mitch says.

“I vote they leave.” Ruby says and I look to her.

“Leave.” Omar says. I then hear Louis and Tenn walking over to us.

“I vote they stay.” Tenn says and I nod.

“Seriously?” Mitch says again.

“AJ is just a kid still, and Clementine is too, they can help us, they already did, and plus AJ is ok, he just needs to talk things out, like when we all first came here.” Tenn says.

“None of us killed anyone though.” Ruby says and I hear Mitch scoff.

“One of us didn’t even try to stop someone from dying.” He says and I look to him.

“Don’t if we’re going to bring that shit up, you could have killed yourself or others with the shit you pulled.” I say and he gets in my face.

“Fuck you.” He says and I shove him away from me and he tried to swing at my but I moved away fast enough to dodge and I kicked him. We started to fight a lot, fist being hit against faces, broken skins causing blood to come out, probably a black eye or bruising, before anyone pulled us away from each other.

“FUCK YOU!” I yell to him and he glared at me.

“STOP IT BOTH OF YOU!” Tenn yells and I look to him and shove Omar off of me. I Shake my head and glare at Mitch as they continued to Vote. Tenn had left in the middle of it knowing they won’t be able to stay.

“I vote they stay.” I say. But it didn’t matter, everyone else had voted for them to leave.

“Fine, they leave.” Louis says and I shake my head. I walked to the school to tell them they had to go, it wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair to them after all they did, after all Clementine did.

“Get a duffle bag of food ready for them, like I said, they get a bag.” I tell them all and I open the door to the rooming area. I sigh as I head to their door and I look to see Louis following me. I really didn’t care at the moment as I go up to the twins’ old room and I knock on the door softly and I open the door to see AJ and Clem standing up from the bed. I sigh internally and walk up to them a bit.

“We took the vote…. You have to go.” I say quietly.

“Don’t we get to Vote? I vote that we stay.” AJ says and I can’t help but smile just a tiny bit at this boy.

“That’s not how it works.” Louis says.

“Yea well it’s pretty fucked.” I say.

“You don’t have to like it.” He says.

“And I don’t.” I tell him.

“But a vote is a vote you agreed to it.” He says and I shake my head as I look to them.

“You’ll get a duffle bag of the food; I’ll make sure it’s a fair amount seeing as you helped us get it.” I tell them.

“This isn’t fair.” AJ says and I nod.

“I’m sorry little dude.” I say and we stay in silent as he tried to calm down. I pull out his gun from my pocket and I grab the bullet as well and I look to him as I hand the items to him.

“The fuck are you doing Vincent?” Louis says pissed.

“They’re going to need it; we will walk behind them so grow up.” I look to AJ as he stares at the gun.

“But I’m a murderer.” He says.

“Well I’m not a huge fan of guns and it’s not mine.” I tell him.

“How about this, you hold the gun and I’ll hold the bullet.” I say as I place the bullet back in my chest pocket and hold the gun out to him and he slowly takes it and places it in the back of his pants. I nod as I watch Clementine grab her bag and she looked around the room a bit. I noticed a few new items here and I rub my neck a bit as we all begin to walk out. I go and check through the bag and I nod when satisfied and I help carry it out. I grab my bow and arrow as Louis grabbed his chair leg with nails. We began walking them out into the woods almost out passed the safe zone.

“Will we find another car?” AJ asked.

“No, we got lucky that one time.” She says to him.

“So, we’re walking.” He says.

“My shoes are going to break.” He says and I look down as we walk.

“We’ll tie them up.”

“I’ll bleed.” He says and I shake my head a bit at knowing this.

“It’s not so bad.” Louis says and I glare at him.

“I mean, you’ve done it before.” He says again.

“You have no idea what it’s like out there, you’ve lived in walls your whole life.” Clem snapped at him and he looked a bit shocked at her reaction. I don’t blame her for this though, he shouldn’t have said that, no matter how mad you are at someone, you don’t bring up things that you don’t know about. I sigh a bit as I look to the side and stop in my tracks.

“We uh… just head down this direction, there should be a road a mile or two out.” I say and they stop and look at us and AJ was twiddling his thumbs just like Tenn does when he’s sad or scared.

“Thanks for taking us this far.” Clementine says and I nod a bit as I look to her and AJ.

“I’m sorry.” AJ says quietly.

“Nothing you need to say sorry for.” I tell him.

“Dude seriously?” Louis says pissed and I look at him.

“Marlon is dead, give him some peace.” He says.

“Sorry for having no sympathy to someone who traded our friends like a sack of meat, and killed another one of our friends, just for ratting him out.” I say as I glare at Louis.

“You know what Vincent, there are things that you did that were fucked up, but you don’t hear me bitching about It.”

“Fuck you man, you don’t even do shit to help us, you play that dumb piano.” I say as he looks at me.

“And you play that stupid fucking guitar.”

“Yea when I don’t have fucking work to do, I’m guessing the only reason you actually went hunting with Aasim was probably to impress Clementine.” I say and he looks at me.

“Guys stop please.” Clem says as she gets between us and moves us apart.

“No, this fucker should speak up, you were a sheltered self-absorbed bitch, who let her own grandmother shoot herself and didn’t call for fucking help, you are a psychopath that shouldn’t have ended up at Ericson.” He says and I glare at him.

“Sheltered? How is having an alcoholic father beat the living fuck out of you considered sheltered?” I asked pissed as my hands clenched into fists. I was about to punch him but Clem moved me back before I could.

“Vincent stop.” She says and I look to her and I shake my head as I look to him.

“Fuck you Louis, just fucking go back to the school and play that dumb piano.” I tell him and he glared at me.

“Fuck you too, I hope you get eaten by walkers out here.” He says and I watch him leave. I shake my head as I looked to AJ as he looked to all of us.

“Fucking god damn idiot.” I mumble as I move back a bit.

“I’m so sorry Vincent.” Clementine says.

“Nothing to be sorry about, Louis just gets mad when things don’t go his way, why he even came out here in the first place makes no god damn since…. Anyway, the road is that way, uh you should hit a town, I have no idea if there are supplies but it would be a good place to start.” I say and I look to AJ as I come up to him and get on one Knee as I grabbed the bullet from my vest pocket and looked to him as I held it up.

“I can’t.” He says and I look to him.

“AJ, you and Clem need this, I don’t have a gun, and I’m not going to get one any time soon, so it’s just useless to me at this point.” I tell him and he looks at the bullet.

“But I’m a murderer.” He says and I shake my head.

“How about this, you take this bullet, and hold it for me, just in case I get kicked out soon.” I say and he looked to me.

“They can’t kick you out.” He says and I chuckle. He did look at me confused and I place the bullet in his hand.

“Just hold on to it for me?” I ask and he nods gently as he puts it in his pocket and I look to Clementine as I hand her the duffle bag.

“Thanks.” She says and I nod.

“I wish I could have said bye to Tenn.” AJ says and I look to him.

“For what it’s worth, he wanted both of you to stay… he was upset when you guys couldn’t.” I tell them and he nods sadly and I sigh as they began to walk away. I walked a good few minutes and was close to where Louis was.

“You need to learn that people like that can’t stay.” He says and I glare at him.

“And according to you, people like me shouldn’t stay at the school either.” I say as I walk.

“Vincent, I didn’t mean.” He says.

“You always don’t mean anything.” I say and I look to him as we stop walking, I look to him and before I could speak again I hear a gun shot ring out and we look to each other and I run in the direction to Clementine and AJ. I heard Louis running next to me as well and I stop as I see the man from the train station.

“Holy fuck he’s alive.” I say and look to see Clementine on the ground with a boot to her neck and a gun to her head. The weird man had AJ by the arm and looked like he was about to break it. I was pissed but before I could draw my bow Louis stopped me and pointed to one area and I nod as we go to the spot.

“You could join us Clementine, we can help you raise your boy.” I heard the woman say as she helped Clementine up.

“All you have to do is convince your friends from the school to come with us.” The woman says and I glare at her as I slowly aim my arrow at her.

“I’m not Marlon, and I don’t live there, they kicked us out.” She says and I watch them.

“Well we could do this, I’ll take the boy here, that way you’ll cooperate, and I wont mind bashing his head in… ever seen old fruit explode? It’ll look just like that.” The man says and I see Clementine as she looked at me. No, she couldn’t see me, could she?

“RUN!” I hear her yell and I look to see the man aiming his gun at us and shooting. I got hit in the shoulder but Louis and I ran and I didn’t want to. I could trust Clementine, right?

“Fucking god damn it.” Louis says and I hold my shoulder a bit and look to see blood.

“Fucking hell.” I say as he turns to look at me.

“Fuck you got shot.” He says as he comes up to me and I move away.

“Don’t, not now.” I tell him as we get to the school and Ruby sees me.

“Good Lord what happened?” She asked as she ran up to us.

“Did those fuckers do this?” Mitch asked pissed.

“No, the fucker from the train station, he’s alive, and he has someone else with him they.” I tried to say and looked to them.

“Look, I’m fine just need a small patch that’s all.” I say and Ruby nods as we head to the nurse’s office. I sit in the chair as she goes and grabs some medicine as I look to her, she sighs a bit.

“Getting yourself shot just to play hero?” She asked and I looked to her as I shook my head and took my jacket off, then my shirt and I grimaced at the wound. She looked at it a bit and sighed as She got up and grabbed some tweezers.

“You have some shrapnel, god this is a big wound.” She says and I nod as she tries to get the shrapnel out of it. It took a bit because she wanted to be thorough with getting the wound as clean as she could.

“God damn it.” She says and I hiss in pain as she tried to pull one piece out.

“Sorry.” She says and I nod.

“It’s fine just… fucking hell.” I mumbled as she finally gets the offending piece out. She patches me up a bit and I grab my shirt and jacket and put them on. She goes and cleans her hands and I look down at the ground.

“Vincent?” She asked and I looked to her.

“Those people…. They threatened to kill AJ right in front of Clementine…. They didn’t care that he was a kid.” I said and she looks at me a bit and sighs.

“They…. People say they will but probably not.” She says and I look to her sadly.

“Would you say the same thing if it was Tenn or even Willy?” I asked and she looked to me then away. I go and walk out the medic room and I head out into the court yard as I look to the others.

“So that man is still alive hu?” Aasim says and I nod.

“Yea, he’s only got one arm though so, he was bit but.” I said as I trailed off.

“Clementine and AJ should be fine.” Aasim says.

“And if they aren’t? we basically sent them out there to die, we aren’t any better than the adults who abandoned us, and even Marlon.” I say as I look to the gate.

“what’s done is done.” He says sadly and I nod. Hours passed and I grabbed my guitar and played some soft tunes. I kept looking at the gate, hoping that they would come back.

“Vincent it’s dinner time.” I hear but I just continue to play and I looked from the gate down to my guitar.

“Vincent?” I hear and look up to see Tenn.

“Yea?”

“Dinner is ready.” He says and I nod.

“You can have my portion…. I’m not hungry.” I say and look back to the gate.

“You should eat.” He says but I don’t answer him. I know I’m being rude but at this time I really don’t want to talk to anyone.

“He’s upset because we didn’t keep them here? They killed Marlon, we voted them out, fair is fair.” Mitch says and I shake my head.

“Mitch stop, not now.” Ruby says and I play my guitar more.

“Fine whatever.” He says and I get up and I set my guitar down. I head over to Marlon’s old office and I look to see Rosie looking at me. She whimpered a bit and I go and pet her head gently behind the ear. She looked up to me and I sit on the ground as she looks to me.

“Good girl.” I say as I pet her more. I look out the window a bit and I heard some footsteps coming up and I heard the door open. I looked up to see Omar with a bowl of food as he looked to me.

“You should eat.” He says.

“I’m just not hungry right now Omar.” I say to him as he sits next to me. He pet’s Rosie as he sets the bowl down next to me.

“You’ll be hungry in a bit, you usually are.” He says and I put my knees to my chest and link my arms around my legs.

“How’s the shoulder?” He asked.

“It’s fine.”

“You sure?” He asked as I looked to him. I nodded a bit as I looked to Rosie as she looked at me. Omar had left after a few minutes and I pick up the bowl of rice and meat and I go sit at Marlon’s desk. I looked down at the drawers and I opened them up a bit. I found some whiskey in the bottle right drawer and I sighed as I saw it wasn’t even opened. It wouldn’t hurt would it? No, I closed the drawer and ate a bit of food as I looked out the window. I looked over any maps and papers Marlon had that would be good to go over. It wasn’t long till the sun started to raise in the sky and I groaned a bit as I get up and I’m about to head to my bedroom.

“VINCENT, LOUIS THEY’RE BACK!” I hear will yell and I quickly run out the building to see Willy running up to the school and I head to the gate. I see Clementine carrying AJ a bit before she collaped to her knees, I quickly open the gate and run up to her.

“I-is he?” I asked.

“No, he… he got shot, he has a fever.” She says scared and I nod as I pick him up from her arms and we go into the school.

“What happened?” I heard Ruby ask and I looked to her.

“Get the medicine, he was shot.” I said and she nods.

“In the main building, on the couch, you can lay him there.” She says and I nod as I go and take him inside. I go up the stairs as Ruby and Clementine talk a bit, Ruby asked why she said We and I set AJ on the couch and lay him down. I back away as Ruby came up to him and I look to Willy who talked to Louis.

“There was a guy and he was wearing animal skin or something, he looked like a walker.” He tells us and I look at him.

“Walker hu?” I asked and he nods and I look to Clementine who was talking to AJ. I go up to her and she looks to me.

“We need to talk.” I say and she nods but before she can leave AJ holds her hand.

“Don’t go.” He says to her scared and I watch her.

“What do we always tell fear?” She asked him.

“T-To fuck off?” He says and I did want to chuckle at this but couldn’t.

“That’s right… I’ll be back I promise.” She says and he nods to her as I take her to Marlon’s office.

“H-How are you?” I asked a bit scared really. She looked to me a bit and I rubbed my neck.

“I’m ok… what about yourself?” She asked and I look to her.

“Been better.” I say and she nods.

“Did… do you have any injuries?” I asked and she shook her head.

“No just AJ… he was shot by Abel.”

“Abel?” I asked and she nods.

“That’s the man’s name.” She tells me and I rub my neck.

“And do you know the woman? She knew your name.” I state and she looks to me and nods.

“Her name is Lilly, I knew her when I was little, it’s been years since I saw her, she… shot a woman in our group and she stole our RV.” She says and I nod.

“So, she’s not a friend.” I say and she nods and I go up to her.

“It’s so good to see you.” She says and she hugs me and I hug her back. We let go of each other and I look at her more as she looks at my jacket and places her hand on the blood stain.

“Got hit by the fuckers’ bullet, don’t worry I can still move my arm and everything.” I joke as I move my shoulder and arm a bit.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know how close you guys were I didn’t know how fast her was.” She says.

“Hey, it’s cool, I’m alive and so is AJ, Ruby is patching him up.” I say and she nods and I look at her.

“Willy said something about a guy with Animal skins with you?” I asked and she rubbed her neck as I looked to her.

“James and it was Walker skin, that’s how he gets around.” She says.

“You brought him here though…. The others are…. They aren’t to happy about a lot of things.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“You don’t have to worry about James, he isn’t a threat, he told me that Able and Lilly will be back with more guns, they want everyone here.” She says and I nod.

“I know, I heard that part.” I tell her.

“What are we going to do?” I asked.

“You guys need to defend the school, it’s already a fortress to begin with, we just need to plan for an attack.” She says and I pull out the map and place it on the desk for both of us to see.

“You guy’s use the greenhouse anymore?” She asked.

“No walkers got a few people out there so we boarded it up.” I tell her and we start making some plans, it wasn’t long till I heard Mitch coming in.

“You’re fucking kidding me, right? I thought you would go along with what we voted on that you wouldn’t let them back in.” He says mad and Ruby comes in to hell him to keep quiet.

“Great and now you’re giving them our medicine.” He complains.

“So what? He had a fever and infection.” Ruby says and they argue.

“STOP IT!” I yell at them and they look to me.

“Mitch you and Clem will go to the green house and get the barbed wire, don’t argue over it, there are people that are going to come here and try to take us and we aren’t going to let that happen.” I tell him and he looked to me.

“I’m not-.”

“Cut the shit Mitch, either help us, or get kidnapped.” I say pissed and he looks to me.

“Fine whatever but I’m not going to risk my ass for her, so if she’s in danger don’t expect me to help her.”

“Oh no, you will help her because if you don’t, we can throw your ass out for letting someone die, all is fair Mitch you don’t like it oh fucking well, you don’t get to be a fucking hypocrite.” I tell him and they all look at me.

“I’m tired of this shit, now go get the supplies, I have to make up plans for Marlon’s mistakes.” I tell him and he glared at me but then walked out. I see Clem look at me and I just shake my head and she leaves as I head to the desk. I sit down and take a few breaths as I listen to Mitch argue with Ruby as they walked away from the door. I sighed as I looked to the papers and try to plan some things out for the future.


	4. How Do You Deal With Fear?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would be best to listen to Hallelujah Rufus Wainwright version when reading.

(Vincent’s pov)

I finished looking at the papers as I got up from the chair and headed out the room to see AJ laying on the couch still and I look to AJ who was still laying on the couch I go and I pick him up gently and take him to his and Clementine’s old room. I open the door and lay him on the bed.

“Vincent?” He asked and I looked to him.

“Yea?” I asked.

“Sorry.” He says and I look to him and I sit on the ground next to his bed.

“Sorry for what?” I asked.

“Wasting medicine.” He tells me and I look to him a bit.

“You…. You didn’t waste medicine, you were hurt, you needed it.” I tell him and he looked to me a bit sad.

“Just relax and heal up, get better.” I tell him and he nods and closes his eyes and I head out the room. I go outside to see Clementine, Mitch, and Ruby all coming back with some barbed wire and some fertilizer as well.

“What’s with the fertilizer?” I asked.

“Mitch said something about making a bomb.” Clementine tells me and I nod.

“Alright, that could be useful.” I say and they all nod. We all went to the court yard and we began to work. I helped Clementine set up the barbed wire on the top of the wall as the others began to work on other forms of weapons and setting the tables up in a certain way.

“I set AJ in your guy’s room.” I tell her as I set the barbed wire in a hole of the wall to keep it secured.

“Thank you.” She says and I look up to her.

“Do uh… do you still want to play that twenty questions game?” I ask her and she looked up at me and nods just a bit.

“I have a question though.” She says and I nod.

“Ask away.” I tell her as I work a bit more.

“Louis and them called you Violet…. Why?” She asked and I froze a bit and looked up to her as she looked at me.

“I… that was my old name…. it wasn’t legally changed before the world went to shit so…. Yea Vincent is the name I want to go by.” I tell her as I set my hands on the wall and move a bit to fix the wires.

“Isn’t Violet a girl name though?” She asked and I look to her again and nod.

“I uh…. Yea, my parents thought I was a girl.” I somewhat lie to her.

“Oh, so they didn’t have a guy name for you when they found out?” She asked and I nodded a bit.

“Yea pretty much.” I say as we finish up on the one section on the wall. I look up to her to see her working more as I come up to her and grabbed another portion of the wires.

“That’s just really weird, not saying that your name is weird but uh.” She tried to say but I laughed a bit.

“Nah it’s all good, it’s weird to name a child after a flower, or color…. or fruit.” I say as I smirk at her and she also laughs as well.

“Or a song.” She says and I smile as I finish with the wires.

“Oh, my darlin, oh my darlin.” I start to sing and she looks to me.

“Don’t.” She warns.

“Oh, my darlin Clementine, you were lost and gone forever, dreadful sorry Clementine.” I sing and she looks to me a bit and I smile just a bit and she laughed a bit and I chuckle along with her.

“I remember when my mother would sing that song to me as a child.” She says and I look to her.

“Did your mother ever sing to you?” She asked and I shook my head no.

“No, she didn’t have time to, and if you’re wondering, my father didn’t teach me to play the guitar.” I tell her as she looked at me with questions in her eyes. We finished up the whole barbed wire traps so we slowly descend down the wall and I help her. She lost her footing and I catch her real quick as she looks up to me.

“Th-Thank you.” She says and I nod as I let go of her and she backs up a bit.

“So, you never had a boyfriend once?” I asked as we worked some more on our defenses.

“He wasn’t my boyfriend; I did like him but… he’s kind of… stupid but in a fun way sometimes or in a way that can get someone killed.” She says and I look at her as we head up to Marlon’s old office.

“So, did you kiss?” I asked.

“Nope, just an awkward talk with his uncle about how his nephew likes me… and then I left.” She says and I laugh.

“Clementine a true breaker of hearts, I think Louis should watch himself.” I say as we head in and I grab some more papers to show her.

“Louis likes me?” She asked and I looked up to her.

“Not sure but…. He never went hunting with Aasim, Marlon usually had to drag his ass out just to get simple jobs done…. Then once he knows you’re awake and helping us, he just does it? I think he does have feelings for you but…. But you shouldn’t take my word for it… he might have different feelings now so.” I say and she laughed a bit.

“It’s fine, I don’t have feelings for him anyway.” She says and I nod a bit.

“So, is the guy you like named Luke by any chance?” I asked and she looked at me.

“Oh god no, he was and would be super old by now.” She says and I chuckle.

“Ah, so who is this guy?” I asked as she looks at the map.

“He was this dude I met in AJ’s parent’s old group…. He dropped me when he thought I was bit by a walker, but I was bit by a dog.” She says and I look to her.

“Oh god… if I had known.” I say as I look to Rosie.

“No, it’s fine, she’s a good dog.” She says and Rosie comes up to her and Clementine pets her gently.

“I’m glad you helped me get somewhat over my fear of dogs.” She says and I nod a bit then Ruby walks in the office.

“Do you know where the paint is?” She asked and I looked to her.

“Um why?” I asked.

“Thinking we could put up a banner or something to scare the raiders off…. Or to give Tenn something to do you know?” She says and I nod gently as I think.

“Last time I saw paint…. Maybe the art room has some left? I know Sophie used a lot of it but there might be some left.” I say and she nods.

“Didn’t think about that.” She says and walks away. I look to Clementine as she looked at the school’s design that Marlon had drawn out and I sit next to her and look at it as well. We talked more on what we were going to do and how we needed to get more weapons for the kids to use.

“You know there was a group of people I ran into before I got here.” She says and I look to her.

“And this is going to sound uh…. Bad but uh… they use to take walker heads and… use that to scare people.” She says and I look to her.

“Well, that is scary…. Is it worth it?” I asked her.

“I’m not to sure, at this point having a live walker would be scarier than a dead one…. But we aren’t going to bring a live walker into the school.” I tell her and she nods.

“You know when all this started…. I didn’t know that my babysitter was going to be one of those monsters…. She got bit saving me, and then…. I just hid.” She says and I look to her then to the ground a bit.

“How long did you hide?” I asked.

“Three days I think, maybe four, I was so scared and so little.” She says and I smirk.

“You’re still little.” I joke and she shoves me.

“Hey, I may be small but I can still kick your ass.” She says and I smile and chuckle a bit.

“Do you still want to continue with your story?” I asked and she looked to the map a bit.

“One day at a time.” She says and I nod. I understand if she doesn’t want to talk much about it.

“So, what about you?” She asked and I point to a section of the school of where we can place more traps.

“What about me?” I asked.

“Why were you sent here?” She asked and I sighed a bit.

“My family wasn’t the best to be with, you already heard about how my father was an alcoholic and would beat me…. But there was more to it…. But I don’t want to talk about it.” I say and she nods. It wasn’t long till we had gone outside and talked more with everyone here, I saw Tenn drawing on the banner that Ruby had brought, I turned to see Mitch working on a bomb and I rub my neck as I look around more.

“Alright, we’ve done enough work for the day, we should play a small game.” Louis says and I shake my head as I go to grab any supplies to use on the gate.

“Vincent, do you want to play?” He asked a bit and I look to him and then to everyone else. They looked tired and I nodded a bit as I went and set the items near the gate and I grabbed my guitar as I head over to them and we all sit near a fire as Omar starts on dinner. Louis was shuffling his cards a bit and I look to the gate and watch for anything.

“Alright we have some new people playing with us today, welcome dear Clementine and AJ, in this small game we will be playing a game where you can do two truths and a Lie.” He states and I look to him.

“You don’t use cards for this game.” Mitch says and I roll my eyes and I look to clementine.

“Louis tries to make any game with cards, don’t be to surprised on the rules though.” I explain as I play my guitar for AJ.

“My dear friend Mitch, I happen to be a master of cards and game play with them, it’s simple, highest card and lowest card gets to go against each other and tell two truths and one lie, of course you could try and cheat and tell two lies and a truth, but that would be one boring and jackass way to play the game.” He says as I look to him and I see Clem watching me a bit and I smile as I continue to play the soft tunes of ‘Oh My Darling’ and she smiled then shook her head at me.

“Fine whatever.” He says and I watch as Louis hands the deck to Tenn as he grabbed a card and they passed it around. I grabbed my card then passed it back to Louis then looked at it. I had the king of hearts and Clementine had the Ace of spades.

“Oh looks like Clem and Vincent are first.” Louis says and I look to her and hold up one finger.

“I Love history.” I then hold up a second finger.

“I use to drink Alcohol like crazy before I got sent here.” I then hold a third finger up.

“I once broke my wrist punching a guy in the face for taking a Yoohoo in second grade.” I tell her and she looks at me as she thought a bit. I handed the card back to Louis as I played the guitar for a bit.

“I think that History is a lie?” She asked and I smirked.

“Wrong, Love history.” I say.

“Really?” She asked and then looked to everyone else and they nodded as well.

“What was the lie?” She asked.

“I didn’t break my wrist for a Yoohoo in the second grade…. It was in the fifth grade, and it was a girl.” I say and she looked to me.

“Why would you hit a girl?” She says and I rubbed my neck a bit.

“Uh your turn Clementine, can’t let Vincent be the only one to do this.” He says and she looked to him and I look to her.

“I uh… I use to play Baseball as a child.” She says as she raised one finger.

“I loved to color a lot even when the dead were walking.” She raises another finger and she looks to me.

“I got to meet a famous baseball player, out here in the apocalypse.” She said and raised her last finger and I have to think a bit.

“I’m going to call bullshit of the third one.” I say and she smiles.

“Sorry Vincent but you are wrong.” She says and I look to her.

“Seriously?” Louis says and she nods.

“Javier Garcia, met him when I was looking for AJ, I was going to take his car from him, and I had pointed my gun at him.” She says and I chuckle.

“Holy hell.” I say and she nods.

“I was one messed up teenager.” She says and I shake my head.

“Nah you were just trying to do what you thought to do.” I tell her and she nods gently. We continue to play the game for a while, mostly people playing against Clementine or each other, and I grabbed my guitar and I play another soft tune. I start to think about what we are going to have to do for this school to keep them safe.

“Vincent?” I heard and I looked to the group.

“You ok?” Aasim asked and I nod.

“Going to work on the wall more tomorrow but we need to go hunting to get some food, I know we have all those other things from the train station.” I say.

“We can get the garden up and running, Clementine cleared out the walkers, and we just need to clean it up a bit.” Ruby speaks up and I look to them and I nod.

“That would be good…. And Mitch is working on the bomb, we can use that to blow them sky high.” Louis says and I nod. We all then got to eat dinner and we then headed to bed, a few days passed and I finished work on the wall. We had done a lot of work for these past few days but we finally finished up. AJ had been sleeping his fever away and he was walking around a bit as long as Clementine hadn’t seen him which I will say I did let him walk around a bit, you can’t really stop the kid once he has his mind set on something. He’s a good kid though and wants to play his part in helping others. He said he wanted to atone for what he had done, and I have respect for that.

“Vincent.” I heard as I looked to AJ.

“Yea?” I asked as I set the map down and marked some areas off.

“Clementine has been happy since she’s been here.” He says and I look to him.

“She has?” I asked and he nods just a bit and holds his side.

“You ok? You need to lay down if you don’t feel good.” I tell him and he nods as he lays on the mattress in the office and I nod.

“She’s never been this happy before, like…. she smiles more.” He says and I look to him.

“I’m glad, are you happy here?” I asked him and he nods a bit.

“Yea, you, Tenn, and even Louis make it nice here.” He says and I nod as I finish with my papers.

“Hey I’m going to head out, you can sleep in here with Rosie, or just relax, don’t push yourself ok?” I tell him and he nods as I head out. I exit out the admin building and see Clementine as I walk out and she looks to me and smiles just a bit as I come up to her.

“So, what we can do is place some barbed wires here as well, just in case they try to come from the back of the school, I don’t think we have to worry to much about the back since they want us all to be in one area but for precaution.” Clem says and the boys nod.

“I’d like to see them try to climb our walls, tear their stomachs open…. Sounds bad but I’d like to see that.” Mitch says and we nod.

“We can use some of the remaining barbed wire there…. We need to get some wood later on for a fire, we’re running low on supplies.” I say and they look to me.

“Do you need me to get the wood?” Mitch asked and I shook my head.

“I’ll get it, you still need to work on the bomb, and Louis you still need to work with that bow and arrow… do you have anything to do Clementine?” I asked and she shook her head no and I nod.

“I’ll get ruby to come along too.” I say and she nods as she gets her knife and I head over to get Ruby.

“Hey Ruby, Clem and I need you to help us get some wood, you good?” I asked and she looked up from her work.

“Yea shug, just let me get my knife and we can head out.” She says and I nod as I go and get our axe, it was a small hand axe but we have one of those wire saws that they usually keep in survival kits, Mitch and Willy found it in the old greenhouse shed so it was a good find to be fair. I look to see Clementine and Ruby coming over to the gate with a few back packs to place any sticks or logs in so we don’t have an issue with carrying them back. I opened the gate for us to get out, letting them out first and then I was last.

“Thank you, good sir.” Ruby says and pretends to take a hat off and I do the same.

“Anything for you ladies.” I say and we walk into the woods a bit.

“So, Clementine, I know you said you been to a lot of places, but where exactly?” Ruby asked her as I went up to a nice sized tree and wrapped the wire around it just a bit and began to work on cutting it.

“Well, I was from Georgia originally, a bit near Macon, but closer to Atlanta but to not be in Atlanta.” She says and I look to her.

“Wasn’t Atlanta basically a war zone when all this started up? I mean we use to have a radio but it went out after the first few weeks.” I say and she nods.

“Yea, Kenny, an old friend of mine, he told me about how bad it was there, we got to Macon though, that’s where…. Where I got to meet Lilly and the others.” She says and looks down and I stop working on the tree a bit.

“I’m sorry.” Ruby says.

“Nothing to be sorry about, she use to be so nice to me when I was little, I still have the hair ties she gave me when my hair was long and for me to sleep with…. shit and Duck was annoying as hell but I would love to hear his voice again.” She says and I smirk.

“A, Boy hu?” I asked.

“No romance, he was just an annoying big brother I never had…. He told me A LOT about science dog and comics, and he wouldn’t stop annoying me so… I put bugs in his pillow.” She says and I laugh along with Ruby as Clem just smiles.

“Shit girl, I now know not to bother you.” I say and I finish cutting the small tree and broke the rest of it away from the stump. It fell and I grabbed the Axe and I looked around a bit for any walkers and then began to work on cutting the wood.

“Oh, don’t worry, I don’t do that anymore…. But AJ on the other hand.” She says and we chuckle.

“So, Georgia, where else?” She asked.

“I think we were in Tennessee, it was just Christa, Omid and I… it was a while after Lee had died and…. Omid…. Died.” She says as she picks up the logs I’ve cut and placed them in her back pack and I look to her sadly as she stopped talking for a bit.

“I uh… ehem…. We could make them a grave here if you’d like… we did that for Minnie and Sophie so.” I tried to say and she shook her head no.

“No, we uh… it’s fine, thank you.” She says and I nod as I finish with the logs and Ruby takes some and places them in her bag as well and I look to her.

“Hey want to take the bag back to the school Ruby?” I asked her and she nods as she leaves and I look to Clementine.

“You want to talk about it? You don’t have to but it’s fine to talk about it sometimes.” I say and she looked to me.

“Can we walk a bit too?” She asked and I nod as we head to more into the woods to get some more fire wood.

“So, say anything you feel like saying.” I tell her as I work on another tree. We were close to the small river where we had caught fish before with Brody.

“How do you deal with people dying around you so much?” She asked and I stopped working and looked to her.

“Everyone deals with death differently.” I say and she looked to me.

“How did you deal with it though?” She asked and I sat next to her as she sat on the steps of the fishing shack. I look to her a bit and thought on the subject.

“When…. When I was eleven years old my grandfather passed away… I didn’t know what to feel at the time, I just didn’t talk much and when I visited my grandmother we didn’t do much of anything… because my grandfather was an energetic man, we didn’t know he… he had cancer and he didn’t tell us, he didn’t even take the treatments but we didn’t have much money to help him with, and he wasn’t the type to ask for money…. I felt like he abandoned me, that he… didn’t like how I turned out…. And then…. My grandmother died.” I said and I remember that day plain as day, it was etched in my memory for the rest of my life.

“How’d she die?” She asked and I just looked out into the woods.

“She shot herself.” I say.

“Oh god, I’m sorry.” She says.

“The bad part was…. She did it while I was in the room with her…. I saw her shoot herself.” I admit and I look to her.

“I stayed in that once spot for five hours, I didn’t call the cops or an ambulance…. I couldn’t I was so…. so, scared about what she had done…. my father blamed me everyday for what had happened and a few days later they sent me to Ericsons.” I say as I hold my hands together.

“Why the hell would your father blame you for that?” She asked and I sighed.

“Because I was born a girl…. And I wanted to be a guy.” I admitted and closed my eyes, ready to be called a freak, ready to get hit, ready to have her walk away and stop talking to me.

“So… you’re a girl…. That want’s to be a boy?” She asked and I looked to her, she looked confused.

“Well… I am a boy… I had the surgeries and everything…. I…. that’s why I’m…. it’s hard to explain.” I say and she nods.

“It’s ok.” She says and I nod.

“So… you look good as a guy.” She says and I laugh.

“You think?” I asked and she nods.

“Yea.” She says and I think and I open my right vest pocket and I pull out a photo and I look to her and then open it up and show her the picture.

“That is my grandfather, my grandmother, and me, before I uh… transitioned.” I say pointing to the little girl with long blond hair and a purple shirt with pink jean shorts and light up sneakers. We were at my school for those dances they would hold for us at the schools, I mean they made us practice the dances before the dance and it was fun to do.

“Aww, that’s adorable.” She says as she looks at the photo and I nod as I hold it out for her to take which she does and looks at it more.

“How old were you?” She asked and I thought a bit.

“I was about five, maybe six when this was taken.” I say and she hands me the photo back and I fold it back and put it back in my vest pocket. She looked to me and she goes through her jacket and then holds something in her hand hidden and then shows it to me and it’s a picture of an older black man in a white suite shirt. The photo looked torn and I looked to her.

“This is Lee… the man who took care of me.” She says and I smile as I take the photo and looked at it.

“He looks sharp.” I say and she nods as I hand the photo back and she puts it back in her jacket pocket.

“I’ve had that photo for eight years, if I lost it, I would freak out…. I did lose it once though; a bunch of guys raided our camp for a damn skinny weasel that wouldn’t feed even one of them… they took my bag and the photo was in there.” She tells me and I look to her.

“I was eleven and I saw so scared…. And I didn’t have Lee’s photo to look at when I’m scared.” She says and I nod.

“Yea… whenever I feel sad, I look at this photo of my grandparents and I…. it was a fun memory; I may not be able to get rid of the bad memories but I have good ones to remember.” I say and she nods.

“I know what you mean.” She says and I close my eyes a bit. The wind blows a bit and even though it’s not to cold it’s still a bit cold and I look to Clementine as she shivers a bit.

“You cold?” I asked.

“Nah I’m good.” She says and I roll my eyes and I take my jacket off and I place it on her.

“Hey.”

“Don’t you’re cold, I’m not, deal with it, besides I’m warm.” I say as I put my hands to her face and I feel her cold cheeks and she looks up to me and blushes a bit then nods.

“Plus, I have a long-sleeved shirt so I’m ok.” I tell her and move my hands away from her face. She looks down a bit and wraps my jacket around her more. I watch her a bit as she just takes in a scene and I watch her more.

“You know… you have really beautiful eyes.” I admit and she looked to me and her face went red and nods.

“You have nice eyes too.” She says and I smile as I just look at the river a bit.

“AJ told me that you were happy at the school?” I asked and she nods.

“Not to be mean but…. It’s nice to have a place to stay that’s longer than a day or two… Lee told me to stay away from the cities, and to also keep going…. I didn’t want to disappoint him but right now…. I don’t know.” She says and I watch her.

“He won’t be disappointed at all… think about it like this, you guys have been on the road out there for years, you finally find a place that you’ve been at for longer than a day, with not only kids your age but kids almost around AJ’s age too, and….. and I don’t care what the others say, but…. It would be great if you stayed with us.” I admit and she looks at me with wide eyes.

“No, you don’t have to make them angry at you for us, we’ve been on our own before it’s fine.” She says and I look to her.

“Clementine, you defiantly earned your stay at our home, you are risking your ass to help us.” I tell her and she looks to the waters.

“Can I think about it?” she asked and I nod.

“Yea… yea you can think on it.” I say and we just relax a bit as we watch the water flowing down the river and I get up.

“Alright let’s head back to the school.” I say and she nods as she gets up and I grab her bag. We argue playfully as I keep the bag away from her and she laughs as I hold it above my head and she tries to jump to get it. It was pretty funny to watch her try to jump up and grab the bag from me as we just head back to the school.

“You know I can carry it.” She says and I nod.

“Of course, but what kind of gentleman would I be if I let a pretty girl like you carry this heavy bag?” I ask joking around and she rolls her eyes a bit as she tried to grab the bag again and I move back a bit from her grasp.

“You would still be a gentleman if you let me carry the bag.” She says and I walk ahead of her as we finally get to the gate of the school. I open it for her and she still tries to grab the bag and I run in and laugh a bit as she chases me.

“Quick Aasim take the bag.” I said and threw it to him and he grabbed it.

“Shit Vincent.” He says and I run off and Clementine is still chasing after me as I run up to the old dean’s office.

“Vincent.” She says and I put my finger to my lip and I open the door and see AJ asleep with his arm over Rosie and she looks in and also sees this.

“He looks so happy.” She says and I nod and close the door and I look to her.

“You still sure it would be best to leave?” I asked as we decided to walk back outside and see what else needs to be done. Once outside I notice how dark it was getting and I looked to see Omar making dinner once again or as always and I see the others just finishing up their work for the day. I rub my neck as Clementine looks up at me and I smile at her.

“You know you look good in my jacket.” I say and she turns red.

“Well it’s comfortable.” She says and I nod.

“You can have it.” I tell her.

“No, I-.” She tries to say but I stop her before she can finish.

“I said you can have it, I have a few more jackets to wear so you’re fine.” I tell her and she nods just a bit and we both take a seat at one of the picnic tables with Ruby and Aasim.

“So, we finished the defenses, Mitch almost has a bomb ready, now all we have to do it wait.” Aasim says and I nod.

“Pretty much, that’s the hard part.” I say and we all sigh and nod. It wasn’t long till we had gotten our food and we ate and talked a bit more. I looked to Clementine as she talked to Ruby about things she use to do as a child, before the dead were walking around that is, and it was pretty fun to hear this.

“Yea, I didn’t do so well in school I was held back believe it or not.” She says and then eats some of the soup Omar had made and I eat some as well.

“You held back?” Louis asked and she nods.

“Yea, I was held back twice actually, I was eight and heading into the second grade before all this began.” She says and I chuckle.

“Hey well you’re at a school, maybe Vincent can be your history teacher?” Ruby says and I look to her.

“Yea and I can be the music teacher, Mitch can be the science teacher, and ooooh we can all be teachers.” Louis says and I roll my eyes at his excitement and Clementine laughs and so do the others. It wasn’t long till we finished our dinner and I thought for a bit and I looked to Clementine as she helped Willy with the dishes and the others headed off to bed. It was my turn for look-out so I go and grab my guitar and I head up the look-out stand we built long ago and I sit on the floor of the stand and I slowly play my guitar. The tune was that of Hallelujah and I played it for a bit before I heard someone come up the ladder and I look to my side to see Clementine as she came and sat next to me and I stopped.

“No, please continue, it sounds lovely.” She says and I smile.

“Want me to sing it too?” I asked as I was about to play.

“There’s words?” She asked me and I nod softly and she nods back.

“Alright, but mind you I don’t sing very well.” I say and she chuckles and I smile as I play a few strings. I look to her as I strummed a bit more and cleared my throat a bit.

_“Well I've heard there was a secret chord That David played and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? Well it goes like this: The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah.” _ I sang and I looked to her as she smiles at me and I continue to play the cords.

_ “Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah _

_Well your faith was strong but you needed proof You saw her bathing on the roof Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya She tied you to her kitchen chair And she broke your throne and she cut your hair And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.”_ I sans again and looked to my guitar a bit to play some more.

_ “Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah _

_ But baby I've been here before I've seen this room and I've walked this floor You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya And I've seen your flag on the marble arch And love is not a victory march It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.” _

_ “Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah _

_Well there was a time when you let me know What's really going on below But now you never show that to me do ya But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.” _I looked to her and smiled a bit as I saw her lean her head back a bit. Her eyes were closed as she relaxed to the music and I chuckled softly at this and continued.

_ “Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah Hallelujah _

_ Maybe there's a God above But all I've ever learned from love Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya _

_And it's not a cry that you hear at night It's not somebody who's seen the light It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.”_ I sang some more and I looked at the stars at this point.

_ “Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah _

_Hallelujah.” _I finished and looked to Clementine who was looking at me and I smiled as I finished up the song.

“You have a nice voice.” She says and I turn red and chuckle.

“Thanks…. My grandmother loved to hear me sing a lot as a child.” I say as I look at the stars. I felt a hand on top of mine and I looked to her as she held my hand. I turn her hand so I could lace our fingers together and I realized how much small her hand was compared to mine. Her hands were callused as well, but yet they were also soft to hold. I lifted our hands and placed them in my lap and clasped her hand with my other hand as well. She looked to me and I smile again.

“I’d love to hear you sing again someday.” She says and I chuckle.

“You’re lucky, the others haven’t heard me sing in years.” I tell her and she smiles at this and I look at our hands.

“Are you scared?” I asked and she nods.

“I don’t want anyone to get hurt, I don’t want AJ to get hurt…. And I don’t want to leave him here alone if anything were to happen to me.” She says and I nod.

“Yea…. I don’t want to leave Tenn on his own… I mean he has the others but… I helped raise him and Willy too… I wouldn’t know what to do if anything happened to them.” I said and looked to the side to see Willy talking with Tenn, as they helped Mitch with his prototype.

“It’s ok…. No one is going to get taken, I’ll make sure of it.” She says and I look away from them and I look to the stars.

“Same here…. Same here.” I say quietly and we kept watch for the rest of the night.


	5. What Am I Doing?

(Vincent’s Pov)

As Clementine and I were watching the Walkers just limp on wherever they could I would just hold her hand and caress it a bit. She didn’t seem to mind the interaction; I didn’t mind it at all if I was going to be honest with myself at this point.

“So, you keep joking about me and if I had a boyfriend…. Could I ask the same?” She asked and I chuckled a bit and smiled as I looked to her then her hand.

“Uh… no…. no boyfriends at all.” I tell her and she giggled just a bit.

“What about a girlfriend” She asked and I licked my lips a bit and took a breath.

“I did…. A year ago.” I say and she looks to me.

“It was… Minerva…. Tenns sister.” I admit and I looked down.

“I’m so sorry.” She says and I shake my head and I look to the walkers.

“Don’t be…. For a year I though Minnie was dead…. And I blamed myself everyday since then…. That it was my job to keep her safe, to…. Make her happy and all that mushy junk.” I say as I look at Clementine. She was looking at me with those beautiful amber colored eyes, god were they beautiful.

“I wouldn’t take you as the mushy romantic type.” She says and I chuckle.

“Neither did Minerva, but I can prove you wrong like I did her.” I say and immediately turn red at my statement.

“I mean uh… well…. Uh…. Forget what I said.” I tell her and she laughed.

“No, no it’s fine…. So how do you date in the apocalyptic times where walkers have taken over and try to bust into your home?” She asked as a joke and I chuckled and I held our hands up a bit.

“We’d hold hands a lot…. I once took her to the fishing shack for a date, we caught some big fish back then too…. We would take a walk in the woods when we had to get some sticks for the fire…. Before Marlon made the safe zone, I took her into the town once where we found this big huge industrial sized pudding…. Now I wanted to eat it all but we brought it back for the others to have a share.” I say as I look to her.

“Did you two ever…. Kiss?” She asked and I nodded.

“Yea… but only after I’ve shaven, she said my facial hair tickled her.” I joked and she smiled.

“Oh, I know that, when my dad use to kiss my cheek it would just tickle my face.” She says and I smile at this.

“Well just imagine how many razors I went through during those times, sometimes I wish I had a razor now, I had gotten so use to shaving so much.” I tell her.

“I think you look cool, maybe trim it a bit but not shave it.” She says as she strokes my face gently with her free hand. I nod a bit at this and she smiled at me and I look back to the walkers. There weren’t that many out tonight, I’d say maybe five or six, they weren’t bothering anything but I did get a bit bored. I slowly let go of Clementines’ hand and I stand up to my feet to go and grab the spare bow we keep up here and I grab an Arrow and I aim at one of the walkers. Once I think I have a good shot I release the arrow and it hits the walker right in the head and I smirk.

“Nice.” I say to myself and I look to Clementine who clapped quietly and I rolled my eyes.

“Want to try?” I asked and she gets up and I hand her the bow and I get behind her as I help her pull back and aim.

“It’s not exactly like shooting a gun but, you use your finger as a sort of guide.” I say as I hold my index finger out and she does the same.

“Keep a cool head, calm, and breath a bit.” I say and she does as she’s told and I point it at what I suppose is a female walker and I aim the arrow at its head and I move my head slightly to Clementine as she has a good hold on the bow and arrow. I place my hands on her hips gently and she takes a breath and releases the arrow, missing.

“Damn.” She says and I smile.

“It’s fine, try again.” I say and hand her another arrow. I place my hands back on her hips as she does what was instructed and then, she released the arrow hitting the walker in the neck.

“Good shot, now if that were a living person, you most defiantly killed them.” I joked and she turned to my and I took my hands off her hips and she looked up at me.

“That doesn’t help in a walker attack, but for some raiders that’s a different story.” She says and places the bow back in it’s spot and sits back down and I sit next to her and I hold my hand out a bit and she places her hand back into mine and I lace our fingers together again and I rub the back of her hand with my thumb. She lays her head on my shoulder gently and I breath a bit. It was starting to get a bit colder and she moves into me more and I smirk.

“You only come to me to get warm?” I asked and she giggled a bit.

“Oh no you found out my plans.” She says and I chuckle more at this.

“no, I mean you are comfortable, and warm…. Haven’t been this warm since that time I fell through the ice after AJ was born…. That was a good fire after that.” She says and I look to her.

“You’ve had one hell of a life during these past eight years.” I say and she nods.

“Got a scar right here.” She says and points to her cheek and I see it.

“How’d you get that?” I asked as I caressed it just a bit.

“Wellington… it was a community that Kenny and I had heard about, we found it, but…. They said they couldn’t take us in, had to wait.” She says and I look to her.

“We had AJ with us too, but….. they let AJ and I stay Kenny…. Couldn’t stay… it wasn’t long till Wellington was attacked by raiders… I got AJ and as much of our stuff as I could and I ran with…. This woman, the one that let us in…. she had AJ but was shot dead and…. I went back for him…. When I ran from the person they shot at me, missing… well not really missing but you know.” She says and I nod as I look at her.

“I was so fucking terrified after that, I tried to keep away from people but after so long…. AJ was becoming more work, and that’s when I found the New Frontire.” She says and slowly sits up rolling up my jacket as she showed me her arm, where I saw a huge jagged scar and then above that was a brand mark and I looked to her as she looked at it.

“They fucking branded you?” I asked and she nods.

“How old were you?” I asked her and she rubbed her neck a bit.

“I was…. Thirteen.” I looked at her more and I was angry, no beyond angry, beyond pissed, I wanted to find one of those fuckers in that group and fucking hurt them so god damn much.

“It’s ok though…. I don’t have to deal with them anymore, Javie is the new leader of the group so.” She says and I look to her and nod a bit at this and I roll the sleeve jacket down and hold her hand some more. I saw that the sun was raising up a bit and I sighed as I look to see Clementine asleep. I move the hair out of her face gently and just look to her more as she slept. I heard someone coming up the ladder and I turn to see that it was Louis and I look away from him and look to the walkers.

“Um… my turn.” He says and I look to him.

“I’ll take your shift, till Clementine wakes up.” I say and then I look to the walkers again.

“I can watch her.”

“No…. no, I have her just…. go practice shooting with the bow and arrow.” I say.

“Vincent.”

“Stop, don’t, just go, be glad you don’t have to do look-out today.” I say and I look to him as he glares, why the fuck is he glaring at me for?

“Whatever.” He mumbled and I watch him go back down and I shake my head as I keep watch longer. It wasn’t long till Omar was making breakfast and I slowly shook Clementine awake. She’s one heavy sleeper I’ll give her that.

“Hey Clem…. Time to wake up…. Breakfast.” I whisper to her and she moves up against me more and I rub her side gently.

“Hey, come on I know you’re hungry.” I say and she opens her eyes just a bit and I smile at her.

“Mornin’ sleepin’ beauty.” I say and she shakes her head just a bit.

“Morning.” She mumbles and snuggles into me more.

“Come on, let’s have breakfast.” I say and she nods and slowly gets up and I help her stand a bit and then she goes down the ladder, and I go down after her. We head over to the picnic tables and the others had gotten their food and I see AJ coming over to Clementine. I head to Omar and I grab them their bowls of food along with mine and we all sit down to eat.

“You didn’t come to bed.” I hear AJ say to Clem and I looked to him then her.

“I was with Vincent on look-out.” She tells him and he looks to me and I nod and then eat more.

“I’m almost done with the bomb; I just need to test it out.” Mitch says and I look to him.

“Don’t worry the one I made won’t kill anyone, but the one that I have planned for the raiders will do some damage.” He says and I nod.

“Alright, we can test it out later today, we do need to get more food and…. shit maybe head into the town and see if we can get better weapons for us.” I say and they all look at me.

“We can’t-.” Louis tried to say.

“I will go.” I tell them all and I look at them.

“You need to have at least one person with you.” Aasim says and I shake my head.

“No, everyone stays here, it’s just in case they expect us to try and go in the town, it’s better to have one kid gone than two or even three.” I say.

“I can go with him.” Clementine says.

“No, you won’t.” I tell her.

“And why not?”

“Because I said so, you have to watch AJ.” I tell her and she gave me this look that I suppose it was supposed to intimidate me but it didn’t work.

“I can watch myself.” AJ says.

“See, plus we all know he can, he just needs to be careful that’s all.” She says and I roll my eyes.

“Fine whatever, you can come.” I say and she nods. We all finish up our meal and I go grab another jacket of mine which is this just one of those cheap jackets you could get at any store but it is warm to wear. I then gabbed my bag and I walked out the room and I saw Clementine coming out of her room. We met up and then headed out of the gate after telling the others that they needed to work on anything that needs to be worked on, like fortifying the wall more, or even just practicing with the weapons they have now until we bring the new ones.

“You stay safe now ya’ll hear?” Ruby says and we both nod and head out. We walked for about thirty minutes before she took my hand in hers again and I look to her and smile just a bit.

“Getting scared now?” I asked and she gives me a glare and lets go of my hand and I frown a bit and grab her hand once more.

“Hey I was just joking.” I tell her.

“Better be, I can still kick your ass you know.” She tells me and I nod as I hold her hand more as we walk. I finally see the road that leads into the town and I stop and she looks to me.

“You ok?” She asked and I nod a bit as I looked to her then the road.

“Yea I’m fine.” I tell her and we begin to walk to on the road. I checked to the road in each direction to make sure there wasn’t any people nearby that’s all.

“So, let’s talk about something.” She says and I think.

“Well did you know that butterflies can drink blood?” I asked and she looked at me.

“No.”

“Yea, they can, now are they going to do it to a living person? No, to a dead person, yea most defiantly.” I say.

“Wow… That’s scary.” She says.

“No not really, I mean it’s weird…. They can also retain memories too, when they’re in the um… chrysalis they’re basically soup and um… it’s funny that they can keep their memories after just being a pile of goop.” I say and she looks to me.

“Did you like butterflies?” She asked and I look to her.

“No, I um… my mom did... she had a book on them and I read it sometimes when I was younger.” I say to her.

“Oooh.” She says and I nod as I hold her hand just a bit tighter.

“When I was younger people saw me and would say I looked just like her when I was little, and uh…. I might not have liked it at the time but… my mother was happy.” I say as we just keep walking.

“And what about when you?” She stopped talking and I looked to her then at the ground just for a bit then at the trail.

“They said that I started to look like my father.” I told her and she looked to me.

“And…. I didn’t like that… at all…. The fact they said I looked like a drunk man, who…. Beats his child and wife….. I remember what he looked like as a teenager and as an adult… and I hate looking in the mirror at school because I look just like him now…. When he was my age.” I say and I stopped for a bit and looked to her as she gets in front of me and let’s go of my hand just so she could cup my face.

“don’t think about that…. Those people are long gone now, your dad is gone.” She says.

“What if he isn’t?”

“Then so what? He hasn’t come for you in years, he didn’t care about the safety of his own son… and if you happen to pass by him, he won’t recognize you and that’s a good thing…. Or in my mind it’s a good thing.” She says and I look to her.

“I…. I don’t want to see him.” I tell her and she nods.

“And you won’t have to.” She tells me.

“But…. I’d want to see my mom.” I tell her.

“And she would want to see you too.” She says and I nod.

“She was a really nice woman.” I tell her and she moves to my side and grabs my hand again as we walk once more.

“Want to tell me about her?” She asked and I nodded.

“And you’ll tell me about your mom?” I asked and she nods and I nod a bit.

“Well…. My mother worked three jobs… she was a hard worker, and she helped me be who I am today…. I promised I would pay her back but…. I don’t think money is an option these days.” I joke and she smiled at the bad joke and we walk some more. I see the town in the distance.

“There’s the town.” I say and we walk up to it. I let go of her hand when we get in front of the old gun shop and I place my ear to the door and knock on it twice and listened a bit. I don’t hear anything so I go to open the door and it’s locked.

“Maybe the back is open.” Clem says and I nod as I head to the back of the gun shop and I try that door and it is also locked.

“Damn…. There might be a walker in there than.” I mumbled as I looked to the window and I look in and see nothing but some guns and ammo.

“Break the window.” She says and I turn to see her grab a rock and I stop her.

“No don’t that will draw any walkers here and we don’t want that…… let me try something.” I say and she nods still holding the rock and I let go of her hand as I go check the windows. I look at the top of them to see one of them isn’t locked so I grab it a bit and I lift it up and smile as it opens just a bit.

“Alright.” I say silently and I look to Clementine as I open it all the way, or as much as I could.

“I’ll help you in, and then I’ll come in.” I say and she nods as I grab her waist and help her up. Once she got in I jumped up and got in. I stood up and looked around a bit. I looked to see Clementine looking at the rifles and shot guns laid about in the store. I come up to her and I see a .22 rifle and I look away as I look to the pistols laying in the glass case.

“This is good.” She says and I nod. We packed up the guns and she handed me a rifle and I grab some of the ammunition and load it up and I hear some walkers groaning a bit and I look to Clementine. She nods a bit and looks out the window.

“Not many we can just sneak past them, that’s good.” She says and I nod as I come next to her quietly. I hear some gun shots and I duck down along with Clementine and we hear some talking.

“You think we can find anything here?” I heard a man say as I slowly get up and look to see Abel and I go back down as I look to Clementine.

“Fuck it’s him.” I whisper to her and she nods a bit and holds her pistol close to her and I think.

“I’ll go make a distraction ok? And you make a run for it, we can meet up at the school.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“No right now we just lay low.” She says and I shake my head a bit.

“No, you can take the guns to the school, just in case the raiders decided to go there for them, if they’re in the town then there’s no telling what they had planned.” I tell her and she looks at me.

“Plus, it’s so the others don’t think you were working with them.” I say.

“Me leaving you here would make me more guilty.” She whispers and I think.

“Shit it does, doesn’t it…. Fuck.” I mumbled and I hear something and I look to the side at the door.

“You hear something?” I hear.

“Probably some walkers, no use going in there, lot of people died trying to get in those damn things.” I head a woman say.

“Right… I don’t think we have to worry much about that though.” I hear another man say and I ready my rifle at the door and I look to clementine.

“Go now ok?” I asked her and she looks to me.

“No.”

“Yes.” I tell her and look at the door and can see a few outlines of people and I watch the door.

“Go.” I tell her and I look at her. She looks at me then to the door and then back at me and pulls my jacket to her and kisses me and I can’t help but kiss her back. When we pull apart, I look to her more.

“Come back, we can meet up at the fishing shack and look to the school and make sure no one went there while we were gone ok?” she says and I nod as she goes out the window. Once she is out, I look to the door and a man busts through and I shoot him and freeze as I quickly move and grab some more ammo and I hear a gun shot and I quickly move up and aim the rifle at anyone in my path and shoot. It hits another man that was closer to me something hitting me in the face and I look around as I grab my bag and head into the office and I push the desk against the door and I hear banging.

“I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU KID!” I hear Abel yell and I look around the room a bit, sweat dripping off my face as I quickly go to the window and bust it open not caring if any walkers are near by and I look down at the drop. The desk moves a bit and I quickly go and jump down and out the window and run as fast as I can in another direction. I hear more gun shots ringing out as I keep running and running and that’s all I did. I ran the full mile which felt like forever and stopped at the old fishing shack and I take a few deep breaths and I collapse onto the steps of the shack. I look around and I hear a few sticks snap so I quickly turn and aim my gun at the sounds and see Clementine running and she stops and I lower my weapon.

“Fucking hell.” I mumble as I look at her.

“Yea…. You ok? Did they hurt you?” She asked and I shook my head no and rubbed my neck and she came up to me and wipes my face a bit and I look to her hand to see blood and I choke up a bit.

“I… I never… I… that’s… b-b-blood?” I asked and she nods.

“It’s ok, you’re ok.” She says and I nod fast and look down.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” She asked as she lifted my face up a bit.

“I…. I never shot a… a person.” I say a bit slowly and scared as I look to her with wide eyes.

“I… I shot two people.” I tell her.

“It’s ok, you were… you had a reason.” She tells me and I shake my head a bit and I look at her again.

“I… hmm.” I tried to say something but had nothing left to say. What was I going to tell her? That I couldn’t fight in this supposed war we’re about to be in with some raiders?

“Let’s get you back home ok?” She asked and I nod as I grip the rifle a bit and we start walking.

“Hey, we’re going to get you cleaned up ok?” She asked and I nod some more as we keep walking. We finally get to the school and the gates are opened and Ruby came running up to me.

“Oh god what happened?” She asked scared as she looked me over.

“Raiders… in the town… I… I shot two of them, and… ran… we ran and… here.” I mumbled as I walked away from her and headed to the office. I went up the stairs and I headed down the hall and I opened the door and closed it a bit. I set the bag down and I went over to the desk and sat down in the chair. I didn’t move from that spot for god knows how long. I looked to the desk drawer and thought for a second. I heard the door open and I turn to see Clementine with a bowl and rag.

“Hey.” She says quietly and I nod.

“Can you… Can you lock the door?” I asked and she nods as she sets the bowl on the table and goes to lock the door. I watch her as she comes over to me with the bowl and I look to her and she sets the bowl down and puts the rag in the water and gently dabs my face and I move a bit and she looks at me.

“Sorry.” She says and sets the rag back in the water and she cleans my face a bit more and I just look at her.

“You’re ok…. It’s ok.” She says and I nod a bit and I think as I look at her. She’s about to put the rag back in the bowl and I open one of the desk draws and grab the whisky bottle and I look at her.

“Want some?” I asked and she looked to me as she rung the dirty water off the rag.

“What is it?” She asked.

“Whiskey.” I tell her and she scrunches up her face a bit and I chuckle.

“So I’ll take that as a no.” I chuckle.

“No I’ll have a drink.” She says and I nod as I open the bottle and I take a swig and hand the bottle to her as I swallowed the drink. I shook my head a bit and chuckled as I looked to her as she grabbed the bottle and I grabbed the rag and finished cleaning my face. I look to her as she takes a swig and she coughs a lot and I laugh a bit as I grab the bottle and I place it on the desk and I look to her as she shakes her head.

“God that’s just…. it smells like nail polish.” She says and I nod.

“Yea but…… I’ve been around it a lot.” I say and I grab the bottle and take another drink and set it back on the table. I look to her again as she sits in front of me and I nod a bit as I look to her more and she stands up and I grab her hand a bit and pull her to my lap. I place my face near her neck and I breath in a bit.

“You doing good?” She asked and I nod as I grab the bottle once more and drink more and set it back down. I hold her waist a bit as I just breath and listen to her and feel her a bit. Minutes pass and I am slowly moving my hand up her shirt. She doesn’t move and I move my face to her neck and I kiss it gently.

“Just tell me when to stop ok?” I ask and she says nothing. I kiss her neck again and pull my hand up higher up her shirt and place my hand directly onto her stomach and keep it there. I kiss her neck more and she moves a bit so I stop and I look up at her and she looks back at me and kisses me gently and I kiss her back. I kissed her more and I pick her up and set her on the desk and I look at her as she looks at me and I kiss her again. She puts her hands through my hair and I move from her lips back down to her neck and I kiss her more as I place my hands on her hips and I hold her.

“We shouldn’t.” she says.

“Why?” I ask as I look to her. I slowly move my hands to the jacket and I unzip it as I look at her more.

“Why shouldn’t we?” I ask her again and I kiss her neck again.

“The others.” She says.

“The door is locked, there’s a bed right over there, and we can be quiet.” I mumble as I look at her.

“It won’t take us long either, we can be quiet and it won’t take us long.” I tell her and she looks to me.

“Would you remember it though?” She asked and I thought a bit.

“I… I’m sure I’ll remember.” I tell her and she looks at me.

“Vincent.” She says and I look at her more.

“Do you want me to stop?” I ask as I place my hands on her face and I take her cap off as I look at her.

“Just tell me to stop… don’t say we can or can’t.” I tell her as I kiss her cheek and I place my hand near her jeans and I slowly unbutton them. She doesn’t say or do anything so I am able to unbutton them and unzip her jeans and she places her hands on top of mine and I look at her.

“Stop.” She says and I nod as I move my hands away from her jeans and I kiss her again. She kisses me back and I feel her hands cup my face. We pull back a bit and I kiss her again and again, just small light kisses to her cheek and lips.

“You should go to sleep.” She says and I shake my head.

“Don’t want to.” I mumble into her neck as I kiss it again and she places her hand on the back of my head and I smirk a bit. I hear her moan just a bit and I place my hands up her shirt.

“Vincent.” She says and I stop.

“Yea Clementine?” I ask as I move to face her.

“Have you…. Done this?” She asked and I look to her.

“Not really…. I uh… used my hands.” I laughed and she does too. I look to her and she looks back to me.

“……No… I’ve never really done it but.” I tried to say and I shake my head a bit and I grab the whiskey bottle again and take a drink. I feel her hand on my arm and I look to her as I place it down on the table once more. It was halfway empty at this point.

“We don’t have to…. Not now, or even ever…. I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable…. I know we’ve known each other for just a week, a week and a few days at that but still.” I say as I look to her and she Kisses me gently.

“You’ll stop when I say stop?” She asked and I nod a bit.

“Of course.” I tell her.

“And…. The door is locked.” She says as she looks to the door.

“And it’s not that late so the others are probably having dinner right now.” I say in her neck.

“Can…. Can we wait till after? When the others are asleep? We can come back here?” She asked and I nod a bit.

“Yea… we can do that…. And if you don’t want to after, we don’t have to.” I tell her and she nods and I help fix her jeans and jacket. I kiss her and she kisses me back and I smile at her as she grabs her cap and I hug her from behind.

“I’m sorry….. if I made you feel bad.” I tell her and she nods.

“You didn’t make me feel bad.” She says and I nod. I watch her leave the office and I rub my face a bit as I headed out the office as well. I head down the stairs a bit and walk outside and I see the others as they look at me.

“You good Vincent?” I heard and looked to Ruby and I nod.

“Yea… just a bit hungry.” I mumbled and she nods as we head to the table and I sit next to Clementine and I grab my bowl. We all eat our dinner and I hear the others talking.

“So tomorrow I’ll add more to the bomb and keep some others on hand just in case we need more.” Mitch says and I nod a bit.

“You good Vincent?” I hear and I get a bit agitated.

“Yes, I’m fine, I’m fucking fine please stop asking me if I’m fine.” I say pissed and they all looked at me and I shake my head.

“Is that Alcohol I smell?” Louis asked and I rolled my eyes.

“So, what if it is? There’s more in that damn office anyway.” I mumbled as I rubbed my face.

“Jesus dude you know you aren’t supposed to drink.” Aasim says.

“Clem you let him?” Omar asked.

“No, fuck off leave her alone I was drinking before she came to the office, secondly, who the fuck cares if I drink or not? I still get up, I still work, I am fine.” I tell them and they look at me.

“Leave her alone, and stop asking if I’m ok, I’m fine.” I tell them and they nod.

“No, you’re fucking drunk.” Louis says.

“What’s drunk?” AJ asked and I looked to him.

“Something you should never be, ever, and Louis shut up, just…. I’m not wasted just tipsy.” I tell him and he glares at me and I shake my head.

“Not even my turn on look-out anyway so it shouldn’t matter.” I tell him.

“And what if those fuckers decided to attack us right now hu?” He asked.

“We’re shit out of luck cause you can’t shoot an arrow worth shit, you think you’ll be saving the damn day?” I laughed.

“Fuck you man.”

“No fuck you…. I’m going to go to bed.” I mumble as I leave my bowl and I head into the admin building and go right back to the office. I go and lay on the mattress and close my eyes for a bit and place my hands on my chest. I don’t know what time it was, how late, or how early all I know is that I heard the door of the office open and I open my eyes and I look to see Clementine at the door. She closes the door and locks it and I sit up a bit as she comes over to me and places her hands on my chest and pushes me back on the bed and I look at her. She kisses me and she helps me take my shirt off and I take her jacket off along with her cap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooooo, yea.... good?


	6. Newcomers

(Vincent’s Pov)

I move a bit as I slowly wake up from my sleep. I look to see Clementine with her face in my chest a bit and I pull her a little closer to me when I feel her shiver just a bit as I close my eyes again before I fully wake up. I think about what had happened not too long ago. It was very eventful I must say and I never felt like that before either, I can’t explain it but it was just amazing. I would really like to ask Clem if she was ok with all this, I mean I remember her telling Louis and I about relationships and what she thought about them. Would she leave me after this? I hope not, I do like her a lot, she’s a really beautiful woman. I look her up and down a bit as best as I can and I kiss the back of her shoulder gently as she lays on her stomach and she stirs just a bit in her sleep as she wakes up slowly. I look at her beautiful amber colored eyes and I smile at her and she smiles at me just a bit.

“Hm? What time is it?” I hear and I look to the window and think.

“Early morning.” I mumble as I see the stars still out just a bit and I look back to her as I slowly pull the blanket over us more and I look at her as she looks at me a bit; she had moved from being on her stomach to her back. I smiled

“You feel better?” She asked and I nod a bit as I kiss her neck. I hold her hand a bit and she takes her other hand and places it on the back of my head keeping me there for a bit. I don’t mind that at all though. I slowly move away from her neck and see the mark I left and I chuckle a bit at this and she just rubs the back of my head a bit and I kiss the side of her neck once more.

“You feel good at all?” I ask and I feel her nod just a bit and I move my head away from her neck as I get up a bit and grab my shirt, jacket, and even pants as I put them on I look to see Clementine put her jacket on and I rub my neck just a bit.

“You got lookout?” I asked and she nods.

“Yea, I have to take Louis shift.” She says and I get up as she does and I come up to her.

“Mind if I join?” I asked.

“Hmmm, not sure.” She says and I smirk as she smiles at me and I follow her. We both head to the look-out stand and I see Louis looking at us.

“What took you so long?” He asked Clementine.

“Making sure Vincent got some sleep.” She says as she goes to the side and I climbed up.

“Oh? Doesn’t look like he got any sleep.” He says as he looked to me and I shrugged a bit.

“I did sleep just…. woke up worried or something, I can’t remember the dream.” I mumbled as he nods and leaves the look-out deck and I look to her as she rolled her eyes and I come next to her. Of course we just watched walkers for hours on end doing nothing but groaning, walking, probably eating some dead animals or some unsuspecting victim that was caught in their grasp.

“What is the one thing you miss the most from the old world?” She asked and I looked to her and smirked.

“Chicken Nuggets.” I say and she looked to me.

“Wait really?” She asked and I nodded a bit.

“Yea, might not have been healthy but hey fast food was good.” I say and she looks to me a bit.

“Hu… not really sure what I’m missing, my mom never wanted me near that stuff.” She says and I chuckle.

“Oh, you aren’t missing much but I just miss the chicken nuggets, after church my grandmother didn’t have time to cook, so fast food.” I say as I feel Clementine get closer to me and I look down at her.

“Jesus it’s fucking getting cold.” She mumbled and I smiled just a bit.

“Yea well, winter is coming closer, I wouldn’t put it past these fuckers to try and take us when we’re desperate and cold.” I mumble and she nods.

“That’s how they get a lot of people, desperate people.” She says and I nod. I hold her hand again and I try to keep them warm for her and she holds my hands back.

“It should be snowing soon, we are in November I think, I mean it has snowed in October a few times before the dead came about but it hadn’t snowed like that in years.” I say and she nods.

“I should be use to this by now but it doesn’t matter, can’t stand the head much either but there’s nothing I can do about weather.” I say as I look to the walkers more.

“So, you and Louis are uh… getting along?” She asked and I looked to her.

“You want to know about us fighting hu?” I asked and she nods a bit and I look at her.

“We may fight a lot but…. I know he has my back and I have his.” I explain and I watch her as she nods and I look up to the stars as I point some of them out.

“You know about stars?” I asked and she shakes her head no and I look to her.

“Hmm, I can’t seem to remember much, I know about the simple things like the big dipper and stuff.” I explained and she looks up at the stars too.

“Yea and the Milky Way, oh and I saw a shooting star once when I was with my parents, you know before all this.” She says and I nod a bit as I look up more.

“We could make up our own stars and stuff, you know, names, personalities and junk.” I say and she giggled a bit and I smiled as I looked to her.

“Sounds like fun, alright let’s do it.” She says and I nod as I look up at the sky and point to one set of stars.

“Looks kind of like a fish don’t you think?” I asked and she looked to where I had pointed and nods.

“Yea it does… ok… its personality involves… good with people, dependable… awesome.” She says and I chuckle as I think.

“Hmm, sounds like… You.” I say and she laughed.

“Really now?” She asked and I nod.

“Yea would you have wanted me to say Louis?” I asked and she thinks.

“I’ll take it.” She says and I nod as I look at the stars again and I point to another set of stars.

“I spy with my little eye, a knife.” I tell her and she looks and then nods once she sees it.

“Alright, you give it a personality.” She says and I nod a think.

“Dependable, good in a fight, gets shit done kind of personality.” I say and she thinks.

“Hmm… sounds like, you.” She says and I chuckle.

“Alright I’ll take it.” I say as I look around the sky more. I then hear something and look around and Clementine grabs the binoculars and I look at her as she hands them to me and points in a direction and I see some people and I look to her and I nod as we slowly leave the look-out stand and I see Mitch and Louis looking at us and we walk up to them.

“There are people in the woods, we don’t know who though.” Clem informs them and I go and grab my rifle as they go grab their stuff as well, Tenn goes and tells Ruby and the others of what is going on and we all stand and wait. We listen a bit and I hear some older man’s voice.

“Damn look a building.” I hear and I walk up to the gate just a bit and I see Louis on the other side with his bow and I look to see Clementine with her gun up a bit and I look through the gate a bit and see an older man with a grey beard and green army like jacket. I slowly raise my rifle a bit as I open the gate once I hear them get closer and I raise my rifle to the people.

“Stop right there.” I say and he looks at me.

“Holy shit it’s a god damn kid.” He says and I glare at him and look to the group of people, three males and one female, one of the males looked to be a kid our age.

“Hello.” The boy says and I look at him as I keep my rifle on them.

“Who are you?” I asked as I looked to them.

“We’re just passing by.” The younger male says as I see a bat in his hands.

“I don’t care if you’re just passing, who the hell are you? Is this your group? Do you have a bigger group of people with you?” I asked as I looked to them more.

“Woah hold on, what’s going on?” The older man says and I look over to the others and Clementine walks out and she freezes as she looked to the people and I keep my gun on them.

“Holy fucking shit.” She says and I look to her.

“You know them?” I asked and she nods and I look to them more and I sigh as I slowly move my rifle down and I look to the people to make sure they didn’t do anything funny or bad to her.

“Clementine? Wh-Where is AJ? Is… is he still?” The older man asked and Clementine nods.

“Yea he’s alive and um… asleep right now.” She tells them and he nods satisfied with her answer and I look to them as they chatted then I looked to mt group of people. I hear a few walkers near by and I come up to Clementine.

“Hey, uh maybe we can take this conversation inside, I don’t want to deal with Walkers right now.” I say and she nods as she escorts the group of people into the school’s walls and I follow behind as I watch them. Louis and I then close the gates and then lock it up and put some things against it to keep walkers from coming in.

“Shit it’s been what? Two years since we last saw each other.” The boy in the new group says to Clementine and I come up to them.

“Yea, it’s been a long time.” She says and then looks to me and smiles.

“Oh Vincent, this is Gabe, Gabe this is Vincent.” She introduced us to each other and I held my hand out which he shook. I let go of his hand and he looks to Clementine and then I hear the older man speak.

“Where’s the leader of the group?” He asked and I look to him.

“Vincent is the leader.” Aasim states and I look to him as I came up to him.

“You need me?” I asked and he looked to me and laughed a bit.

“No seriously where is the leader?” He asked and I rubbed my neck a bit. I know why he would think like this though, I didn’t look like a leader type and also I look like a kid to him.

“I am the leader, actually Clementine and I are the leaders here currently.” I say and he looks to me.

“Where are the adults?” He asked.

“They left us.” Ruby tells the man and he looks to all of us and then to me and I nod.

“Yea, we uh… been on our own since the beginning of this, last adult that was here was Mrs. Martin but uh… she passed away.” I tell him and he nods a bit.

“Uh, damn.” He says and then the other two adults walk over to us and I watch them carefully.

“Ok so who are all of you? I know a Gabe but not you three.” I say and the others nod.

“I’m Kenny.” The old man says.

“I’m Javie.” The man with the bat says.

“I’m Kate.” The woman says and I nod at all this. We all introduce ourselves and I look to Clementine as she talked more to Gabe and I watch them.

“Damn it’s been so long since we’ve seen Clementine, looks like that’s all we have in common, she’s pretty notorious.” Javie says and I nod a bit.

“We wouldn’t know, we never left here.” I say and he looks to me.

“I’m sorry.” He says and I shake my head a bit and I watch them all a bit.

“She had a kid with her right?” Kenny asked and I nodded.

“AJ, or well Alvin Junior.” I say and Kenny nods.

“Yea that’s him… how is he?” He asked and I looked at him.

“I uh… I can’t really speak for him, but he’s a good kid, he gets a bit confused sometimes when trying to learn new things.” I explained to him.

“Hey, are you guys hungry?” Omar asked them and they nod a bit as he serves them some food and I look to Clementine who came over to me and she took me to the side so we could talk. Kenny was telling a story to the kids about said girl that was taking me away from them.

“So, Gabe said something about having to leave their old community due to raiders attacking the area, I’m pretty sure it’s Lilly’s group.” She explains and I nod.

“Alright, so they either might leave or stay?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, I know Kenny would want to fight but… he could have changed.” She says and I nod and I hold her hand a bit as I look to her.

“Um… I’ll show them to their rooms when they finish dinner.” I mumble and she nods and kisses my cheek and I turn red a bit from embarrassment and she laughed a bit.

“You’re just adorable.” She says and I look to her.

“I’m not adorable.” I mumbled and she shakes her head a bit when she looks to me with a smile.

“Come on, lets chat with them a bit so we can head to bed, I know you’re still tired.” She says and cups my cheek a bit and I look to her and nod. But before she can leave, I stop her and look at her.

“You uh… are we?” I asked a bit and she looks to me confused.

“I know… when Louis asked about relationships… you aren’t mad at what we did?” I asked and she shook her head no and I watch her.

“No, I started it by coming back to the office, so I just went against what I said about relationships… I liked it though, I mean… it was really nice.” She says and I nod as I kiss her cheek a bit and we walk over to the picnic table and we sat and talked with the new people.

“Oh god when I first met her this girl, she had chopped a huge tree down and made the fucker crash into it.” Javie says and I look to her.

“Really?” I asked and she nods.

“Oh yea… kind of bad on my end because the truck wasn’t drivable… I basically not really, but I basically kidnapped Javie and wanted his vehicle.” She says and I nod.

“So how did you meet them?” Kenny asked as he looked to us.

“Car crash.” I say and he looks to her scared.

“Not my fault, fucking walkers and… we tried to get away after the grenade blew up at the train station.” She says and I chuckle a bit but the guy Kenny looked to me and frowned.

“You think that’s funny?” He asked and I rubbed my neck.

“Hey man calm down, we think a lot of things are funny.” Louis says and I shake my head at him.

“Well it isn’t funny.” He says.

“I think it is now that I can look back to it, plus we had to go back to the train station so it was better to have had it blow up then, and not later.” She says and I hold her hand under the table and I stroke it gently as we listen to stories more.

“Gabe here had a huge crush on Clementine.” Javie says and I look to her and she nods and I laugh a bit at his information.

“You still got a crush on her?” I asked and he turns red and rubs his neck and I chuckle as I look to Clementine.

“And she was oblivious to it all.” Javie says and I smile at her.

“Clementine a true breaker of hearts.” I say repeating what I had told her once before and she shoved me a bit and I chuckle at this.

“Ok, so what have you been up to since we last saw you Clem?” Gabe asked her and I watched her.

“I found AJ not to long after I left New Frontier, and we just traveled from then on, well until a few days ago where I showed up here.” She explained and I hold her hand a bit more and I watch her as she looked to the table a bit.

“So, is this a boarding school?” Gabe asked.

“Yea it is.” I answer as I look to him.

“That’s cool, what did you do here?” He asked.

“Uh learned?” I asked a bit confused.

“No like, did you guys have to be really smart to get sent here?” He asked and I looked to him.

“I mean, we are kind of smart.” I say and Clementine looked between us.

“So, this is a nerd school?” He asked and I was so confused at what this boy was saying and I rubbed my head a bit.

“We saw a sign that said there was a boarding school around here.” He says and I look to them.

“Where?” I asked.

“In that small town not to far from here.” He says and I rub my face a bit as I look to Clementine.

“We’ll go take it down later.” She says to me and I nod a bit and I look to the kid.

“So, there are no adults here?” Kenny asked and I nod.

“Adults suck anyway.” Mitch says and they look to him.

“He isn’t wrong.” I said.

“Adults built this wall.” He says.

“And we kept it maintained and worked on it for the past eight years.” Louis says and I sigh a bit as I looked to Kenny.

“We have been doing well without adults for years now, Clementine has too.” I say and she nods to Kenny a bit.

“Clementine is different, this is a school of troubled Youth, you didn’t think I wouldn’t read the sign?” He says and I look to him.

“So? Everyone is troubled.” Ruby says to him and he looked to her.

“I…” He tried to say but Javie interrupted him.

“Anyway, thanks for letting us stay and feeding us.” He says and I nod and I look at Clementine more and I grab her hand more and place my other hand on hers. She looks to me and smiles a bit.

“So how long have you been here?” Kenny asked Clementine who looked back to her old mentor.

“A week and a few days? Almost two weeks to be honest.” She says and he looks to me more.

“Any issues with the boys here?” He asked and I looked to him with a glare.

“Like?” She asked.

“They haven’t tried anything have they?” He asked and I look to Louis, Mitch, Aasim, and Omar and we all laughed at this and they looked to us and I move my hand from hers and cover my mouth as I try to calm down.

“Bold of you to say that around us.” Louis says and I shake my head and Clementine looks to me so confused. I keep forgetting she never really got to have these types of talks.

“He’s asking if any of us tried to have sex with you.” I say bluntly and the new faces blush like crazy and my friends and I laugh again.

“Wait… the fuck is that?” She asked and I rub my neck a bit and I whisper in her ear so no one could hear me.

“You know what we did in the office?” I asked and she looked to me and turns red. I do hope the old man assumed that it’s because I explained what it was and not what we had done in our alone time.

“Uh… no they haven’t.” She says and looks down at the table and I chuckle a bit.

“Good.” Kenny says and I smirk a bit as I look to Clem. She grabbed my hand more and I rub it gently.

“And if she did?” I asked.

“Then I’ll beat the boy that violated her.” He says and I look to him.

“Come on man, if they did stuff then they did Clem can make her own choice.” Javie says and Kenny glared to him.

“Listen here, she is still a child, she doesn’t need to be a mom.” He says and I look to Clem who is laughing just a bit and I laugh a little too. If only he knew. But I know what he’s doing, he want’s Clementine to be safe, nothing wrong with that, he’s known her since all this started.

“She acts like a mom already.” I joked but he didn’t seem to like that response and glares at me.

“Excuse me?” He asked.

“She’s raised AJ for a long time now, she’s basically a mom at this point already.” I say and he looked to me and I glare back at him.

“Well she doesn’t need to be having kids at this point in her life you idiot.” He says and We all look to him. I’m not really shocked at his response.

“I didn’t say she needed to have kids at this point, I’m just saying she’s already acting like a mom by taking care of AJ who is still a child mind you.” I say and he looks at me more then he looks away.

“Ok can we stop talking about this?” The woman Kate says and I nod a bit and I hold Clems hand more.

“Yea, please.” Clem says quietly and I look to her as she was red from embarrassment and I smile at her a bit.

“Whatever.” Kenny says and I sigh a bit as I see the sun starting to come up and I rub my eyes a bit.

“Alright uh… we can try and relax for today; it’s been a long night and I know I’m bushed.” I say as I get up a bit and so does everyone else. Ruby takes the new group of people to theor rooms for the day and I look to Clementine as I take her to her and AJ’s room.

“I’ll stay up longer to Watch AJ and the others, I can’t leave them up by themselves.” I say.

“I can stay up too, we can just stay in the walls today just in case either of us need to sleep.” She says and I look to her as I see Ruby and the others heading to their rooms and I look to her.

“You sure?” I asked and then the door opened and I looked to see AJ looking at us.

“Oh, you done with lookout?” He asked and Clementine nods a bit.

“Yea but I’ll stay up a bit longer, we’re going to kind of relax for the day.” She says and I look to her a bit and then I see Tenn and Willy coming out the room as well and I smile at them.

“Hey you guys.” I tell them.

“Morning Vincent.” Tenn says and I nod.

“Uh Omar made breakfast for you guys.” I said and they all nod and head out to get some food. I watched as AJ followed them and I looked to Clementine who looked dead tired and she looked back to me.

“You sure you don’t want to sleep?” I asked and she nods.

“Yea I’m sure I can stay up for days.” She says and I chuckle.

“Well if you ever need to sleep just go ahead, I can watch the boys.” I tell her and she nods as she slowly heads into her room and I watch her go in her bed and I go in and cover her up.

“Sorry.” She mumbled and I nod.

“Nothing to be sorry about, just get some rest.” I tell her and she nods as I take her cap off and set it on the table for her. I kiss her head and she closed her eyes a bit as I stood up. I turn to the door to see AJ looking at us and then running off out the building and I rubbed my neck as I looked to Clementine and I sigh as I go and leave the room making sure to close it and lock it. I head out to see AJ, Tenn and Willy all eating. I go over and sit with them.

“I had a dream where I was flying.” Tenn says.

“You can’t fly though.” AJ says.

“Well it was a dream you can do anything in a dream.” Willy says to AJ and I smile a bit.

“Yea, I once had a dream where I was aware it was a dream and I could do whatever I wanted.” I said and he looked to me.

“Yea?” he asked and I nod.

“So, you did whatever you wanted?” He asked and I nodded.

“If I wanted to eat ice-cream in my dream I did so, I can’t do that anymore so.” I try to say and he nods a bit and I hear some walkers by the gate and I go and grab my knife to take care of them. The boys help me and I look to the sides of the gate after we killed the ones in our way.

“Lots of walkers out today.” I say and they looked at me. It was a few hours later when we sat at the table and I watched the boys draw and Willy was witling with his knife that Mitch gave him two years prior.

“Shit you haven’t gone to bed?” I hear and I look up to see Louis and Aasim walking over to us.

“Had to watch the boys.” I tell them as they still draw.

“Go to bed Vincent.” Aasim says and I nod a bit as I get up and start walking over to the rooms until I hear someone running behind me and I turn to see AJ.

“You should sleep in mine and Clems room, the beds are soft in there.” He says and I chuckle and nod.

“I’ll think on it ok?” I asked and he nod and I pat his head gently.

“Alright, have a good sleep.” He says as he runs over to Aasim and I nod as I head over to the room and I look to his and Clementines. I rub my neck a bit as I head to my room and I hear the door open and I turn to see Clementine walking out. She still looked tired and I go over to her.

“Hey you ok?” I asked and she looked to me and nods.

“Yea I’m… no, I had a nightmare.” She says.

“Want to, come to my room? We can lay back and relax, Louis and Aasim are going to watch the boys.” I tell her and she looked to me and nods just a bit as I grab her hand gently and I take her to my bed room and I open the door for her. She walks in and I walk in behind her, I then come up behind her and I hold her waist gently and I kiss her neck a bit.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked.

“I… it was just what happened years ago, With Lee.” She says and I nod as I take her to my bed and I sit next to her.

“I just…. I just keep having the dream of shooting him when he was bit… I try to help him but I can’t.” She says and I look to her.

“I am really sorry about what had happened to Lee, He sounds like a great man and he loved you till the very end.” I tell her.

“I just wish I could go back in time and help him or even just not do what I did.” She says and I hold her to me and I lay back on to the bed and she had her head to my chest and she gripped my shirt a bit as I looked to the celling.

“You know… there are times where I wish I could turn back time to do something and change the outcome of my life but… then I wouldn’t be here… I wouldn’t have met you, no matter how morbid it sounds its just…it’s the truth.” I try to say and she nods a bit.

“Hell, if Lee was with me… I don’t think he would have like the idea of what we uh… did.” She says and turns red and I smile and I close my eyes a bit.

“Yea, I don’t even think your friend Kenny would be to… Happy to know about that.” I joked and she laughed just a bit.

“I’m sorry, I… I can’t really talk about this with anyone.” She says and I nod gently as I rubbed her back just a bit.

“Yea I know what you mean, I can’t talk to a lot of people about certain things.” I tell her and she nods a bit. I don’t know how long it’s been but my eyes start to grow heavy from the lack of sleep and I start to nod off.

“I should head out.” She says and I grab her hand gently.

“Nah, you can stay, this is comfortable.” I mumbled and I sit up and take my shirt off. It was a bit warm today and I lay back down and I feel her lay back on top of me and I hold her to me. It wasn’t long till I just started to fall asleep and I just held her to me.


	7. The Good Times Before the Bad

(Vincent’s Pov)

I woke up a bit as I looked at the ceiling a bit. The sun was still high up in the sky and I feel some weight to my chest as I look to see Clementine still asleep on top of me. I moved a bit and she wakes up and she looks to me.

“Hm?” She mumbled and I chuckle a bit.

“Still tired?” I asked and she shook her head no.

“Nah I’m good.” She says and I sit up and rub my face a bit as I look around and yawn as I get up and grab my shirt and I look to Clementine as she looked to me. She gets up and comes over to me and kisses my cheek a bit and I smile at her. I then grab her waist gently and look at her.

“So what do you want to do when all this shit with the raiders are over with?” I asked and she looked to me.

“We could go for a stroll.” She says and I chuckle and nod a bit.

“Alright we can do that.” I say and she nods as I let go of her and I put my shirt on. Once I grab my jacket, I help her out the room and I look to see Kenny and the other three walking out their rooms and I take Clementine outside so we could get anything we needed to get done, done.

“Afternoon good children.” Louis says and I roll my eyes a bit as we sit next to him and look to a map that he had.

“Whatcha looking for?” I asked as he pointed to the school area.

“We could set some traps here for the raiders.” He says and I nod.

“Sounds good…. What type of traps?” I asked.

“Rope that hangs them upside down, you know not really hurting them, just to scare them or something.” He says and I nod.

“Sounds like a good idea.” Clementine says and I hear some arguments and I look over to Aasim and Willy and I get up and hurry over to them before Willy punched Aasim in the gut.

“Whoa hold up what the hell is going on?” I asked as I pulled Willy back.

“Aasim isn’t listening to me.” Willy exclaimed.

“Cause your idea is fucking stupid, he wants to put a log in the god damn admin building that would take out one raider at most.” Aasim says.

“Wait, raiders?” I hear and I look to see Kenny and the others looking at us.

“Look, we can talk about that later.” I say and they look at me.

“What is this thing about raiders?” I hear Kenny say and I look to him.

“Not right now.” I say.

“No now, the fuck do you mean by raiders?” He asked pissed and I looked to him.

“Kenny calm down.” Javie says and I rub my face a bit.

“There are a bunch of raiders that want to take us.” AJ says and he looked to him then back to me.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he asked pissed.

“No, OK, we have raiders that want to take us from our home and make us fight in a stupid war or some shit, has nothing to do with you.” I tell him pissed.

“You didn’t think to tell us? I would gladly take Clementine and AJ away from this.” He says and I look at him.

“No, Kenny don’t not now.” Clem groans a bit and looks down embarrassed.

“No, you and AJ shouldn’t deal with this.” He says.

“No, you’re right, they shouldn’t and they could have left the moment AJ got better and I would not have stopped them, but they’re still here because they want to stay, we aren’t forcing them to stay at all.” I tell him as I look to Clementine who was looking at AJ, who was looking down at the ground.

“Now back off, and if you’re going to act like this, you and your group can leave, you want to act like this I don’t care, we are trying to clean up a fucking mess that should never had happened.” I tell him and he glared at me.

“Why you-.”

“KENNY!” Clem yells and we all look at her.

“Just stop this please, I can make my own choices I have for years without you, just stop.” She says and he looked to her then back at me and the others then back to her.

“No, you’re going to come with us Clem, you and AJ you aren’t staying here to fight their bullshit.” He says and we all look at each other then back at him.

“No, I will not, I am staying here.” She says.

“Clementine.” He says.

“Dude lay the fuck off her.” I say and he glared at me.

“Let me guess you’re making Clementine help you clean up your own fuck up, just admit it.” He accused me and I glare at him.

“No, I’m cleaning up the mess our old leader made, so fuck off old man.” I tell him and he was red and I was close to punching him. I saw his hand as a fist and I clenched my hands.

“Don’t you dare.” He says,

“No fuck you, you’re in our home, you can fucking leave right now if you don’t like this.” I tell him.

“Gladly, but Clementine and AJ are coming with us.” He says.

“Dude, stop.” Javie says.

“Don’t tell me to stop.” He says and I glare at him.

“Vincent stop.” Louis says.

“No fuck this old man, he thinks he can tell them what they’re going to do? No fuck him.” I tell Louis and then I look to Kenny, who was visibly mad.

“You’re going to get them killed.” He tells me.

“OUR OLD LEADER WAS GOING TO GET THEM KILLED, HE WAS GOING TO GET ALL OF US KILLED YOU OLD FUCKER!” I yelled as I glare at him.

“AND WE ARE TRYING TO CLEAN UP HIS MESS!” I yelled again as he looked at me. I wanted to fucking punch the hell out of this man with his bullshit, I don’t care if he was friends with Clementine in any shape or form, he is not going to accuse me for Marlon’s bullshit.

“Kenny, stop, AJ and I are staying, we like it here.” She says and I look to her as she looked to me.

“You… You’re a kid you don’t know.” He tried to say.

“Kenny please stop, I have been making choices for years, I want to stay here and so does AJ.” She says and AJ nods.

“Tennessee is really fun.” AJ says and I looked to him.

“Kenny, they let us in their home.” Javie says and he shakes his head and keeps quiet. I was watching him as he mumbled and left the area and I shake my head as well and I rub my face as I looked to Clementine who looked at me sadly and I breath a bit as she comes over to me and I look down at her.

“I’m so sorry.” She starts and I stop her.

“It’s fine, old man needs to know that not everyone is going to listen to his way of life, oh well.” I say and I finish talking with Aasim and Willy who both agreed to hand a bag of bricks in the admin building. It was a few days later when Kenny and the others had decided to take their leave. Clementine had said her good-byes to them and gave them all hugs and I watch Kenny.

“If…. If you guys ever want to come back then please do so.” I mumbled and he nods and they all take their leave. I was watching them as they leave and I rubbed my face just a bit as I look to the others as I walk back into school and I lock the gate.

“Ok, we have everything set up?” I asked and everyone nodded and I nod.

“You all have your weapons?” I asked and they nodded as I looked to them and I nod as we all just take a break from working our asses off.

“Alright… lets play a game.” Louis says and I chuckle a bit and nod.

“Yea I can go for a game.” I say and Louis shuffles his deck of cards as we all look to him.

“Alright ya’ll time for a round of truth and dare.” He says and I chuckle as he hands us the cards and we grab one and flip.

“Ooooh ok Clementine, Truth or dare?” Louis asked and he looked to me.

“Uh… Truth?” she asked.

“Aww, anyway is there anyone here you like-like?” He asked.

“Like-like? What are you six?” I asked.

“Seven actually.” He says.

“Yea there is.” She says and I see her eyes looking to me but not giving away who. Even though Louis tried to get it out of her.

“Aww come on you can tell us, is it me?” He asked and I laughed along with Aasim and Ruby.

“Hey it could be Ruby.” He says and I laugh some more.

“Come on tell.” He asked her again and I look to her a bit.

“Nope.” She says.

“Hey I could make fun of that hat.” He says.

“Don’t.” Both AJ and I said and he looked to me and I shake my head a bit as to warn him not to do so.

“Don’t make fun of her hat.” AJ says and Louis nods at this.

“Alright ya’ll next round.” Ruby says and we all get our cards and I flip mine and look around.

“Shit again?” Clem says and I chuckle a bit.

“Alright… Marry Fuck Kill?”

“Vince.” Tenn says and I roll my eyes.

“Fine, Marry, Flip, Kill? Hmm Ruby, Louis or that boy in the woods?” I asked as I looked to her and she thought.

“I would Marry…. Ruby.” She says.

“Ooooh I hear wedding bells.” Louis says and I chuckle.

“I can hear them too, now we just got to get a horse for Ruby.” I say and she throws a stick at me as we laugh.

“I would, flip.” She says and Louis along with AJ chant flip as I look to her.

“Louis.” She says.

“Damn I knew I had the charm.” He says as he slicks his hair back and I roll my eyes.

“So that means you’re going to kill?” Aasim says.

“Boy from the woods.” I announce.

“May he rest in peace, even though he was a figment of Clems’ imagination.” Louis says.

“He’s real I saw him.” AJ says and I nod to him as he looked to me.

“Alright another round.” Louis says and then we all grab our cards and I flip mine and I see Clementine smile as she finally got a high card. I look around and see that Aasim was the one with the low card and he looked to her as he does Clementine was thinking.

“Truth or dare?” she asked and I look to Aasim and he smirks.

“Do your worst dare.” He says and I look to Clem who is smiling.

“I dare you to… Kiss the walker head.” She says and he looked to her shocked.

“But I’ll die.” He says.

“Go for the cheek, avoid the teeth.” She says and Louis and I can’t stop laughing at this as we watch Aasim going over to the walker heads and kissing it.

“Ooooh damn Aasim, when is the wedding?” Louis asked and I chuckled at this as Aasim came over spitting and I smile at this.

“Fuck off man.” Aasim says and we grab our cards again and this time Aasim has the high card and Tenn has the low card and I looked at them.

“What’s something you believe in that you wouldn’t share in fear of being bullied for?” Aasim says and Tenn looked at all of us and I nod.

“I think that the walkers will go away, there are many things that have come and gone over the years, Stone age, uh the dark age…. Other ages you know… walkers came and they can go just like other things have come and gone, basically a walker age.” He says and I look at him.

“A world without walkers… that sounds nice.” Clementine says and I nod as I continue to look to him.

“It’s so weird.” AJ says and I looked to him.

“You all know what it’s like before… I don’t.” He says quietly and I look at him sadly.

“Don’t worry kid, the world was still a shit place before all the walkers came to eat us, and raiders try to steal us.” Louis says and I look at my card a bit.

“Fuck those raiders.” I say as I hand the card back to Louis.

“I’ll agree with that.” Aasim says and I rub my face as Omar calls for dinner and we all go and eat. It wasn’t long till we all finished and I see AJ shivering a bit so I take my jacket off and place it on him and he thanks me for it and I nod. I finish my food and I look up at the gate and wall a bit as I think for a while I look to the Bell Tower. I hadn’t been up there for years since Minnie didn’t really like going up there with me and said that it was a stupid thing to do. And me being the coward who wanted to just make others happy I listen to her and had the door locked up after the twins were gone or we were told they were dead. I wasn’t in a happy place after that news so it was a good thing that we had locked up the door to it.

“Alright, so major question…. Should we celebrate Christmas this year?” Louis asked and I look to him a bit.

“You know, that sounds like a good idea.” Ruby says and I nod.

“What is Christmas?” AJ asked and I looked at him.

“A time where we give gifts and have fun.” Louis says and AJ looked to Clementine for some form of confirmation and I chuckle.

“Well he isn’t wrong.” She says and I chuckle.

“God I can’t remember the last time we did something like that.” Aasim says.

“It was before Sophie and Minnie left.” Tenn says and I look to him and rub my neck.

“I… It sounds like a good idea actually, lets do it.” Omar says and I look to the flames a bit.

“Vincent?” I heard and I looked up.

“Yea, we can do that, show AJ how we celebrate.” I say and everyone nods. It wasn’t long till we finished up talking, Ruby had taken look-out for a bit and I looked at the flames then to the boys as they talked to AJ and explained holidays for him. I looked over to Clementine who was talking to Louis and I slowly get up from the couch and head to the admin building. I go up the stairs and head into the old office and I looked around a bit as Rosie sat up and came over to me. I pet her head gently as I opened the drawers a bit and I find a key and look at it. I did look like the key Marlon had used to lock up the Bell Tower, even if I’m wrong there has to be keys somewhere. I head back out the admin building and see Louis trying to make Clementine laugh but it seemed to be failing.

“So, that Kenny guy, was he always like that?” Louis asked as I came over.

“He… kinda, as far as I can remember, he has had a tough life since his son died.” She says.

“Duck was his son, right?” I asked and she nods as I sit next to her and place my arm on the back of the couch behind her.

“Yea, he was ten when he passed away… I saw him in his moms’ arms dying and… I told Kenny that Duck wasn’t feeling good… Next thing I know a few hours later, Lee and Kenny stopped the train, and then Kenny takes his son into the woods with Katjaa… Then bang, gunshot rings out, I though duck was gone and lee went to check it out… then another bang, and Kenny came back with lee but no Duck or Katjaa.” She says and I watch her.

“I honestly didn’t know what happed to Katjaa I thought she wanted to stay with duck or something like that, but years later, I realized she shot herself.” She says and I look down.

“She was a good woman.” She says and I nod a bit. We talk a bit about random things like school and what music we listened too. I looked to Clementine a bit and then I get up.

“Well I’m going to go and check the defenses, want to come look?” I asked her.

“Or you could help me? I have a new piece I’m working on but it’s missing something.” Louis says and I look to her a bit.

“Got to get a few songs in before you chop the piano into fire wood.” He says and I roll my eyes and I begin walking to the Bell Tower. I heard some footsteps behind me and I turn to see Clementine as she came up next to me. I smile a bit as I take her to the door of the tower and I use the key and unlock it, happy that it was the right key at least. I open the door for her and she walks in and I come in from behind and see her looking up the tower. The bell had fallen and was sunken into the ground because there was no need to fix it in any way.

“Up there?” she asked and I nod.

“Yep… chicken?” I asked and she looked to me.

“Hell no.” She says and I chuckle as I start climbing.

“Uh… is it dangerous?” She asked and I smirked.

“Well be honest what’s worse? Walkers? Or that deathtrap you called a car?” I asked and I hear her mutter a bit.

“Alright Fair.” I chuckled a bit as I climbed up. It wasn’t long till we finally got to the top and I looked at our defenses and I look at the wall more.

“Barbed wire, traps, seems like everything is in order.” She says and I nod. I look around a bit more and I rub my neck as I look to her.

“Uh, you have look-out next right?” I asked her and she nods.

“Yea, why?” She asked.

“You think you have time to hang out with me?” I asked and she nods a bit but before we could I heard Ruby calling for Clementine who looked to me and smiled sadly and I chuckled a bit.

“Guess not.” She says and we both laugh and I kiss her cheek gently. We looked down and waved to Ruby as I pointed to the bell tower a bit and she nods as I help Clementine down and she headed to the look-out post and AJ followed her up there and he grabbed the binoculars and I looked over to the others.

“Alright, so everyone think they’re ready?” I asked.

“Yep, bomb is ready to go.” Mitch says and I nod.

“Good, Louis what about the bow and arrows?” I asked.

“I think I got it, if not I have Chairles.” He says and I nod as I look to the others.

“Medicine is hidden so they can’t take any just in case something does happen.” Ruby says and I nod and I looked to see Clementine and AJ hurrying down the ladder and AJ is running over to us.

“They’re here and they have horses with movable crates.” He says and I look to Clem.

“Cages for us.” She says and I nod and I breath in a bit.

“Look let me do all the talki-.” But before she could finish there was a loud bang and Omar fell to the ground holding his leg.

“Fuck.” He says and I look around quickly and her people banging on the gates.

“Clementine, we know you’re in there.” The woman says and I see her grab Omar.

“I have him, go.” I say and she looked to me and nods as she hurries to grab her bow and I pull Omar off to the side and hand him a gun.

“Use this ok?” I asked and he nods as I help Clementine flip the table and push it to the other to make a barricade and I look at her then I see Louis on the side with his bow and chair leg. I look around and see my rifle on the other side and I quickly go to I and I grab t and stay hidden behind the table when I hear the gates open up.

“Fuck.” I mumbled and I look to Clementine who looked to us and I nod a bit as I hear the people walking in.

“Clementine, where are you?” I hear the woman ask again and Clementine nods to me and we both get up as I aim my rifle at them and she aims her arrow at them.

“Lilly.” She called out and the Raiders look to us and I see the man with the one arm.

“Shit, thought you would have died with how close you were.” He says as I look to him and I glare at him.

“Where is the rest of our recruits?” She asked and I glare at her a bit but keep my eyes on the other.

“They aren’t yours.” She says and Lilly looked to me then back to Clementine as she raised her hand up and I look to the tree and I glare as I see someone in the trees.

“Fuck.” I say quietly and I look at them.

“You planned out a lot of things, told them how to do it too hu?” Lilly asked and she looked to me.

“You’re Minnie’s boyfriend hu?” She asked and I look at her more.

“She misses you, says you always made her smile, she wanted to come but as you can see this wouldn’t have been the best if she was going to be hurt here.” She says and I look at her.

“She’s alive?” I asked. I just wanted to make sure, I just wanted to know if she was ok.

“Of course, come with us and we can show you.” She says and I keep my gun pointed at her and her people.

“Vincent.” Clem says and I look to her then back to the raiders and I shake my head. I see some movement and see Tenn coming out of hiding and I shake my head at him but he didn’t pay attention.

“Where are they?” He demands and I glare at him a bit.

“Let me show you.” Lilly says and I fire the rifle off near her feet as I move over to Tenn and she glares at me.

“You little brat.” She says and I glare at her keeping my rifle pointed at them.

“Fuck you bitch.” I tell her.

“Fucking disrespectful brat.” The man Abel says and I roll my eyes. I see Mitch light the fuse on the bomb and I move Tenn back a bit as the bomb went off Knocking some raiders down including Lilly, scaring the horses as hey run a bit and the raiders scatter a bit as I shove Tenn out of the way as one raider came up to us and I shot him in the head and I backed up.

“TAKE WHAT YOU CAN AND KILL THE REST!” Lilly yells and I look around as I see Clementine shooting at some of the people. I move to the side quick enough to move away from one raider as she tried to cut me with her knife. I used my rifle and wacked her in the head with it knocking her out. I move away as I see the others heading into the admin building and I see Mitch throwing a miniature bomb by one of the raiders setting it off and blowing the mans foot and I back up as I look around. I see Clementine and AJ along with the other boys run into the admin building as Able follows them and I run up to him only to be stopped by a big bear like man who tried to grab me and I fired the rifle at his foot blasting a hole in it as I run away from him. It wasn’t long till I saw smoke in the building and yelling, then I see Clementine and Abel fall from the balcony.

“CLEM!” I yell and I turn to hit another raider who tried to hurt me. I hear a gun shot going off as I turn to see Mitch hiding.

“MITCH!” I yell to him as he turned to stab a raider and I look to see Lilly pointing her gun at Clementine. I was about to run to her but I see Louis tackle Lilly and I turn to stop a woman from slicing me with her knife. I shove her back a bit and she shoves me a few feet back. I hear Louis yelling and I quickly aim my gun at Lilly and fire the rifle missing her but she had let go of him. The next thing I feel is a sudden pain from my side and I looked down to see a blade covered in blood poking from the fabric of my shirt and a burning sensation when it was pulled back. I hear yelling and screaming as I turn to see the woman who stabbed me and she grabbed my rifle from me and hitting me with it. I fell back a bit dazed and I felt myself being lifted up. It wasn’t long till I felt a hard floor and bumps. My vision was going in and out a bit as I looked to see the sky and stars but also some bars before I finally passed out. I have no idea how long I was out for but I felt some water being splashed on me, it was so god damn cold that I woke up and breathed a bit hard and felt a pain in my side as I hissed in pain and then I felt a punch to my face as I quickly look up to see Lilly glaring at me.

“Have a nice nap?” She asked as she grabbed my face. Water dripping from my face onto her hand and I glare at her as I shiver a bit from the cold, I forgot that I gave AJ my jacket.

“Hmm?” She asked me again and I look at her more.

“You know you and your friends gave us real hell.” She says as she shoved my head to the wall hitting it and I close my eyes a bit as I look at her.

“Fuck you.” I tell her and she glares at me and punches me again and I cough a bit.

“You got a lot of my people killed back there, and all we got was you, a weak nobody.” She says and I chuckle.

“Better me than them.” I say and she punches me again and my head moved to the side and I hear footsteps.

“Thanks Dorian, I’ll need you to get the medic in a bit.” I hear as I look to the sounds and I see Lilly with a crowbar and I look to her.

“Yes ma’am.” The other woman says and she leaves as Lilly closes the door of the cell and she looks at me as she comes back over to me crowbar in hand and hitting it against her other hand a bit.

“We lost four people just for one kid… that doesn’t seem fair now does it?” She says and I glare at her. I’m shivering a bit more due to the cold air and water and she smirks.

“What can’t handle the cold?” She says and I glare at her.

“F-Fuck you.” I stutter and she laughed as she lifts my chin up with the crowbar, the cold metal making it worse for me.

“Well don’t expect any extra blankets kid, this is all you’re going to get.” She says and I just look at her.

“You know they aren’t going to come for you… they didn’t even try to save you.” She says and I glare at her more.

“You’re a fucking liar.” I tell her and she laughed.

“Let me guess Clementine told you that hu?” She asked.

“Well, you know she’s a liar too.” She says.

“The fuck has she lied about? You haven’t been around her for years.” I say and she smirks.

“Oh, dear boy when you live out those walls you have no choice to be a liar these days.” She says and moves the crowbar away and I look at her as I shiver a bit and move my hands to my arms to keep a bit warm.

“She’s killed many people, she didn’t give a damn about some, she is well known through out these states, you think we haven’t heard of her? Even Minerva Knows about her.” She says and I look at her.

“Right, you are her boyfriend, right?” she says and laughed a bit.

“I… she… she.” I mutter and she laughed a bit and I looked down.

“Sorry I should say you were her boyfriend; she found another guy her age in my group.” She says and I look to the side.

“See how easy it is to lie?” she asked and I didn’t look at her.

“Look at me when I am talking to you.” She says as she grabs my face and I glare at her and I guess she didn’t like and she stand up and swings the crowbar to my face and my god it hurt like fucking head and I hold my head a bit as I hear a ringing in my ear and I wanted to fucking cry from the pain.

“Fucking disrespectful brat, look at me when I talk to you.” She says and I look up to her a bit my hand still to my head and she glared at me.

“Your friends won’t come for you, your girlfriend didn’t care for you, no one cares about you, had it not been for me, you would have died with that stab wound, so you better thank me.” She says and I keep quiet as I look to her more. It pissed her off and I flinch a bit ready for the crowbar to hit my head again but it didn’t come. I look up to see her smirking and she leaves the cell and I look to the wall as I try to stop the ringing in my ear. I breath a bit and look around and I grab the blanket and cover my top half as I try to get warm.


	8. Rushing Waters

(Vincent’s pov)

I woke up to another bucket of water being splashed on me as I woke up and I jolt up a bit and looked up to see Lilly looking at me and she grabs me by the collar of my shirt and lifting me up and I glare at her a bit as she shoved me to the wall as she let me go. I stay standing as I look at her more and she looks at me as well.

“Get ready.” She says and throws some clothes at me and I catch them and look at the clothes. They were a black pair of Cargo Pants, a long slaved black shirt with a black heavy jacket to go along with it, there was a tan belt and black socks to go with it. I shivered a bit due to the cold and I look up to see her leaving the cell and I set the clothes on the bed and change into the new clothes. It wouldn’t be good for me to freeze to death because of these fuckers.

“You done yet?” I hear and I look up to see a familiar face as I came up to the cell doors and I looked at her.

“S-Sophie?” I asked as I looked to her and she looked back to me and I chuckled a bit.

“Jesus it is you.” I say as I looked at her up and down a bit.

“Vincent? It’s been so long.” She says and I nod as she opened the door for me and I give her the biggest hug I could give.

“Oww ok you bear.” She says and I set her down and I look to her and she looked to my face.

“Lilly told me to take you to the medic, make sure you don’t have any damage that’s all.” She says and I grab her hand before she moved away.

“No, we have to get out of here.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“Why?” She asked.

“This place these people aren’t good, you know that.” I say.

“Vincent, these people are good, you just need to know them a bit better.” She says and I look at her.

“Sophie.” I say.

“Vincent just give them a try, you’ll see they’re good people, they just need people to help defend their home, my home.” She says.

“Your home? What about Tennessee? And Louis, and Omar.” I asked as I looked to her.

“They can join, they should have come last night, it would have been easier.” She says and I look to her.

“We don’t want to be apart of this, we just wanted to stay in our home, the school.” I say and she looked to me.

“Come on Vincent, let’s get you checked out.” She says and I followed her as she took me to a room on the ship and the medic looked me over a bit and I looked at them.

“Hmm, nothing serous just a huge bruise, on the side of your face.” The man says and I looked to him.

“Thank you Dr. Linguard.” Sophie says and the man nods as we leave and I look to her as she takes me to the top of the deck.

“Where’s Minnie?” I asked her.

“You’ll see her in a bit, she’s in charge of new recruits.” Sophie explained and I looked to her then looked around a bit and saw Minnie and I rubbed my neck a bit as she turned to look at me.

“Vincent?... they got you?” She asked and I just looked at her.

“Um… is he the only one?” Minnie asked someone and I turned to see Lilly glaring at me.

“Sadly yes, but it seems he’s pretty good with defending, well besides the stab wound he has.” She says as she looked to me. I watched her as she walked around me and I felt her grab my jacket as she pulled me to her.

“You better do as you’re told or I swear to god I’ll make your life a living hell.” Lilly tells me and I was shoved back as I looked at her. She then left as I looked to Minnie and Sophie as they came up to me.

“She uh, grows on you.” Minnie says as I look to her.

“God you finally got taller than me, Jesus.” She says as she uses her hand to measure our heights and I shake my head a bit.

“Look I just want to go back home.” I tell her.

“You’ll be in a better home Vincent, trust us, they have running water, good food, electricity, Jesus you won’t have to sit next to a fire to keep warm or have to share a bed with someone.” She says and I look to her. I remember when Clementine and I slept in the same bed and I shake my head a bit as I look at the floorboard of the ship.

“I don’t mind.” I say quietly and I look up at them.

“Vincent just listen to us; we love it there and you will too.” Minnie says and I shake my head.

“I love my home, the school is my home, our home, we can still go back.” I whispered to them as a woman walked by. I remember her, she was the woman that had stabbed me last night.

“Vincent the Delta is our home.” Sophie says.

“Marlon fucking gave you two away to these people, this isn’t a home it’s a fucking prison, you didn’t know that they even existed till Marlon gave you two up.” I say as I look at them.

“You’ve been brainwashed.” I say.

“LOOK, Marlon did something good, if he didn’t take us to the Delta we would have starved.” Minnie says and I look at her.

“No… No, you wouldn’t… I would have.” I tried to say and I looked to them.

“You would have what?” Sophie asked and I looked at them.

“I would have gotten more food.” I say.

“How?” She asked.

“I... I don’t know.” I mumbled as I looked to them.

“How is everyone anyway?” Minnie asked.

“I don’t know… last I remembered I shot at Lilly when she tried to take Louis into the cage and I got stabbed.” I say as I looked at them.

“Look the boat isn’t going to leave for another day, due to walker activity, we can try and get the rest of the school kids if you tell them it’s ok here.” Minerva says and I glare at her.

“No, Lilly hit me in the head with a fucking crowbar, fuck that.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“Vincent, I have been nothing but nice to you, grow the fuck up.” She says and I glare at her. That’s all we did until Lilly stepped in and I was taken away. I look over to the woods and see some movement a bit and I stop to try and get a good look but then I was shoved by Lilly and we walked back to the cells. I was locked back up and I rubbed my head a bit as I sat on the bed and looked at the door a bit when people walked on by. I look back up when the gated door opened and I look up to see Sophie walking in with a tray and she sets it on the small table and I look at her.

“Hungry?” She asked and I nod a bit as she handed me some water first. I look at it and then to her.

“I didn’t do anything to it.” She says and I slowly take a drink and hen look to her.

“You going to try to convince me to join your group?” I asked and she looked to me a bit and I look at the ground.

“I can’t make that choice, but I am telling you it’s a great place.” She tells me and I sigh a bit as I finish the drink and set the cup on the floor and I move down to the floor. I watch as Sophie sits next to me and hands me the tray of food and I look at it. It did look good, better than what was at the school and I rub my face as I just take the roll of bread and I take a bite of it. I hand the rest of the food back to Sophie who looked at me and I looked at the wall and just ate the bread slowly.

“I know you didn’t just pass up some chicken.” She says and I look at her.

“I don’t want any thank you.” I mumbled as I look to the wall again and I eat my roll.

“I know you want to go back to the school but just give this place a chance ok?” She asked and I shook my head a bit.

“I just want to go back home.” I said and I heard the gate open again and I look to see Minnie and Lilly.

“Sophie, you’re needed at the medic ward.” Lilly says and Sophie got up and left and I looked at the two as they stood there by the door.

“So, you don’t want to join us?” Lilly asked and I looked away.

“No, none of us do.” I say and she came up to me and I stood up and backed away from her.

“You’re nothing but a scared child.” She says.

“The fuck do you expect? Your group came to take mine, and I get stabbed and hit in the face with a fucking crowbar.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“How about this… there was a group of people heading out southeast, an old man, a teenage boy, a young woman, and another man that carries a bat everywhere he goes.” She says and I look to her. I knew them.

“Have you seen them? And don’t lie to me.” She says and I looked to her then Minnie then back to Lilly.

“What would you do to them?” I asked her.

“Nothing, the old man just killed a group member of mine, a young girl at that, and I jus want him to pay for what he did.” She says and I look to her more.

“W-Why did he kill this young girl?” I asked.

“I have no clue as to why, but he killed her in cold blood.” She says and I look at her more.

“What do the other have to do with it?” I asked.

“They planned it out with him, Dr. Linguard said so.” She says and I think a bit.

“I… They um… I saw them yes but I have no clue of where they went.” I say and she pins me to the wall.

“You’re lying.” She says.

“No, I’m not I swear.” I tell her as she drops me and I see her grab her knife and I look at her.

“Lilly?” Minnie asked and I look at her then Lilly again.

“Tell me which direction they went and how long ago, I’ll figure it out myself.” She demanded and I look at her more.

“They could have gone in another direction from what I saw, look I have no clue where they hell they went ok? They just left, that’s all they did was just leave.” I tell her and she puts her knife away and then she punched me. I was able to grab her one hand before she did it again and she glared at me more.

“You’re no better than them.” She says and I let her hand go as she walked away. Minnie looked at me and I rubbed my arm.

“Jesus.” I mumbled.

“I’m sorry.” She says.

“No, you aren’t if you were, you’d let me go, you wouldn’t force me into this, you’d help me escape.” I tell her as I get up and glare at her.

“But we’re back together, Vincent think about it.” She says as she come up to me and I watch her. I feel her hand go to my cheek and I watch her a bit as she tried to kiss me but I backed away a bit or as best as I could from the wall.

“Vince?” She asked and I watched her.

“I… We can’t be back together.” I tell her.

“Why not? You finally fall for Brody or something?” She asked and I look to her sadly.

“Brody is dead.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“How?” she asked and I looked down a bit at the floor and away.

“How?” She asked again and I look at her.

“Marlon Killed her.” I say and she looked at me.

“He wouldn’t.”

“He did.” I tell her and she looked at me scared and I look down.

“He did kill her.” I say and she looked at me.

“Why? Why would he kill her hu?” She asked as she looked at me.

“Apparently she told Clementine.” I tried to say but Minnie stopped me.

“Clementine? You’re going to believe her? You didn’t see what happened to her? The fuck?” She asked and I look at her.

“What do you have against her? You never met her.” I tell her and she looked to me.

“She’s known all around, she knows the group that passed by your school, she knows Dr. Linguard too, she’s the reason for everyone’s fuck up.” She tells me and I look at her.

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” I tell her.

“And what do you know about her hu? Did you fall for her charm? Is that why you don’t want to be with me?” She asked and I look at her.

“The fuck does that have to do with you?” I asked.

“You fell for her?” she asked pissed.

“So, what if I did? I thought you were dead, I finished mourning you, you have a fucking boyfriend anyway.” I tell her and she looked at me.

“I don’t.”

“Liar.” I say.

“I don’t, I never got anyone new.” She says and I look at her and I shake my head.

“Lilly said people Lie, you have to be lying.” I tell her and I shake my head and I sit on the bed.

“Just fucking go.” I tell her and she does leave. I have no clue to how long I was on this boat, another night had passed and I rubbed my face as I lay down on the bed and try to relax a bit. It wasn’t long till I heard some talking and I slowly sit up to see Minnie and Sophie talking to each other. I get up more and I walk to the gate but I stayed off to the side so I could listen in.

“We can let him go and say he knocked us out, he doesn’t want to join at least we can give him an out unlike what we had.” I hear and then more footsteps.

“Lilly?” Minnie asked and I backed up a bit as I sat in the bed and I looked to the gate as it opened up and I look up to see Lilly glaring at me.

“We leave tonight, see, your supposed friends didn’t come to save you, they don’t care about you, they never did.” She says and I glare at her a bit and I shake my head at her.

“You’re a liar, I know you are.” I tell her.

“Is that so? Then where are your friends?” She asked and I looked to her.

“Planning something.” I say and she laughed as she looked to me.

“You’re serious? They want nothing to do with you, they would have saved you by now if they really cared about you.” She says and I look down as she leaves the room and I rub my face just a bit. I look over to the side a bit and I go and sit on the bed once more.

“Vincent?” Sophie asked and I shake my head a bit.

“Leave me alone.” I say quietly.

“Minnie?” I hear her say and then I hear some footsteps.

“More walkers are coming up to the boat, we might have to leave earlier than planned.” I hear and I lay back on the bed. There’s no point in trying to leave or do anything, I can’t or Lilly would surely beat the hell out of me. I hear gun shots ring out and then I hear some yells as I slowly get up and I hear more yelling as I hurry to the gate and see Sophie.

“Vincent get back.” She says and I look to her.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“People are attacking the boat, get back now.” I hear and I look to Minnie as she pointed her crossbow at me and I slowly lift my hands up and back away from the door as she keeps the arrow pointed at me, ready to shoot.

“Minnie, just drop the crossbow.” I say.

“Shut up.” She says and I look at her a bit and I slowly dropped my hands. It wasn’t long till I heard more people running around the ship and Minerva looked to her side and pointed her crossbow at someone.

“Minnie no.” Sophie says as she grabs her sisters crossbow and points it down.

“Louis?” Minnie asked and I quickly went to the gate but Minnie brought her crossbow up quickly and shot at me missing me by an inch as I look to her.

“Minnie.” I say as I look at her.

“Get back.” She says and she looked to Louis. I look at her more and I hear more yelling.

“Jesus fuck.” I hear and it was Clementine’s voice.

“CLEM?!” I yell out.

“VINCE?!” She called out and I see Minnie glaring at me as she points the crossbow at me once more this time she had the arrow in an open space of the bars and I watch her as she looked to me.

“Take one step and I will shoot him.” She says and I look at her sadly.

“Minnie don’t.” I tell her.

“DON’T WHAT?!” She yells and I look at her. She glares at me and watch her.

“You’re going to leave, you’re just going to leave us, for a shittier life than what we’re offering you, you’re a fucking fool Vincent.” She says as she looks at me then I hear her.

“Drop your weapon.” Clementine says and I slowly go up to the cell bars. The crossbows arrow pointed right at my chest as I look to Minnie who had tears in her eyes.

“Fuck you Clementine.” She says.

“Don’t do anything stupid.” Louis says.

“Minnie, you and Sophie can come back with us…. Marlon is gone… you can come home.” I tell her and she glares at me her finger on the trigger.

“Minnie, you know you don’t want to do this, you’ll regret it.” I tell her and she looked at me.

“Lock them up Sophie.” She tells her sister and I watch as the other members on the boat lock up Louis, Clementine and AJ. I look at Minnie more as she glares at me.

“They come for you just like that but you couldn’t do the same for me, do you know how fucked up that is.” She says and I look at her.

“Minnie we were told that you and Sophie died, what was I suppose to do?” I asked as she looked at me more, she was pissed.

“You should have asked questions.” She said.

“You’re right, we should have asked more questions, I wasn’t thinking, I was just… I thought you and Sophie were gone I was in a bad place you have to understand that.” I tell her and the next thing I know, Lilly is walking down the hall and she looked at me.

“Good job Minnie.” She says and she turned to Clementine and Louis’s cell and I glare at Minnie as she looked to me.

“Thank you, ma’am.” Minnie replies and I look around a bit and the boat rocks a bit and there’s a loud bang that hits from my floor and I back up.

“What’s going on?” Lilly asked and I looked around as some wood broke from my floor and I back up and cover my eyes a bit.

“Fucking hell.” Ii say as I back up more.

“Vincent.” Minnie called out and I look to her.

“WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Lilly yells at clementine and then shakes her head as she runs and I look to Minnie.

“Let us out now.” I tell her.

“I…” She tried to say but Sophie shoved her as she got AJ and the others out but Minnie blocked off my door.

“Minnie god damn it let me out.” I tell her.

“NO!” She yelled at me.

“Fucking Let him out.” Clementine says as she glared to Minnie and the boat rocked again.

“Fucking hell you’re willing to let Vincent die?” Sophie says pissed and I try to unlock the gate myself but Minnie pointed the crossbow at me again.

“I’ll do it myself if I have to now back away.” Minnie says and I look at her more.

“Just… Clem, Louis just go.” I tell them.

“Vincent.” Louis says and I look at him.

“Go now.” I say and he looked at us then to Clementine as he grabbed her.

“No.” Clementine says and I look at her.

“Clem just go… I’ll be ok.” I tell her as I look at Minnie who just didn’t take her eyes off me.

“I.”

“GO!” I yelled and then there was another bang and the boat rocked more and I saw as Clem left but I knew she stopped to look at me. I just looked at Minnie.

“Is this how we go down?” I asked.

“I don’t want this but…. You can’t leave.” She says and I look at her more.

“You… you’re willing to let me die… just because you don’t want me to leave?” I asked her as she looked at me.

“I.. You didn’t save me or Sophie… you don’t know what we went through.” She says and I watch her.

“Minnie, Just come back tot the school with us, that’s all you have to do.” I tell her and she looked at me. That’s when the Boat shook again and the blast was closer to me and I backed up as the ship broke in half and I look at her.

“MINNIE!” I yelled as I look at her before a plank of wood hit me right in the head I held it for a bit and I looked back at her. She looked to me scared and then shook her head and she opened the door and I grab her hand and we run out. I had no idea where we were going but the last thing I remember was one finally blast as we made it from the boat and fell into the water. I had no idea where Minnie had went but as I broke the surface of the water I look to the side and cough a bit as I see land. I try to swim to it but I was dragged down and I look to see a walker. I freaked out as I kicked the damn thing and it had let go of my leg as I finally got to the shore and I cough more as I look around a bit.

“Vincent?” I hear and I look around my head hurting and I couldn’t see out of one of my eyes.

“Fuck, Fuck, Fucking hell.” I mumbled as I look around and held my right palm to my right eye.

“Vincent?” I hear again and I look around and then up at Clementine who came up to me.

“Jesus fuck what happened?” She asked as she looked at my eye a bit.

“Doesn’t matter… where’s Minnie and Sophie?” I asked as I looked around a bit.

“Sophie is with Ruby, I have no clue where Minnie went but fucking hell.” She says and I look around as best as I could and there were walkers. I grabbed Clem as we looked around and found an opening and we hid behind some rocks.

“The others left.” AJ says, and I look to Tenn a bit as I hear this.

“What?” I asked.

“Walkers were surrounding them they had no choice.” AJ says and I nod a bit as we look around more.

“There’s an opening that way.” I say as we all got ready and ran past the walkers. It wasn’t long till we met up with someone and I stopped as I was about to attack but Clementine stopped me.

“It’s James, he helped us.” AJ says and I nod a bit.

“Fine let’s just fucking go.” I say as I look around more and James takes us through a cave. I look around and see running water.

“It’s the waterfall.” I mumbled as I look around more and a walker came floating down the river in a tube and I look to Clementine as she looked around the water and she grabbed a stick and lit it on fire so we could see better.

“How do we get across?” I asked as I looked around some more.

“Look a log.” Tenn says and I turn to see where he was pointing and I head over to the log and I see Clementine come to my side.

“We can make a bridge to walk across.” She says and I nod as Me, Clem and James pushed the log and it made a bridge and I look to see the walkers coming to us.

“Go.” I say as AJ, Tenn, James, And Clem walked across the log and I followed behind them. Once I crossed over James and I grabbed the log and we shoved it so the walkers couldn’t cross and neither could any of the raiders. It wasn’t long till we started walking again and we got to a huge cave opening with three ways to go through.

“Look, we need to stop.” James says and I shake my head.

“No fuck that man, I’m not going to be walker food and neither is my family.” I say as I look around.

“No, we need to talk about what AJ did.” He says and I look to him confused then to Clementine and AJ.

“What? We can do that later.” I say and look to the walls again and think.

“He shot that woman, Lilly.” James says and I look at them.

“So? She fucking deserved it.” I say.

“You’re kidding right? You’re ok with him being a killer?” He asked and I look at him.

“Dude, lots of people kill others, this isn’t new, only difference is, is that she kidnapped kids and broke them to join something they didn’t want to join in.” I say.

“So, you’d kill Clementine? Or even the other boy if you wanted to?” He asked.

“Don’t pull that shit man, you’re asking for an entirely different situation to happen, now stop.” I say to him.

“Different? He shot her seven times, after he shot her in the head, he continued to shoot her.” He says.

“She tried to kill Clementine, and Tenn and You.” AJ says and I watch him.

“Everyone just stop.” AJ says and I look at him and I shake my head a bit.

“Let’s just get-.” I tried to say but then I saw James go after AJ and Clem got in front of him.

“Don’t touch him.” She says.

“You can’t raise him right, I can.” James says and I pull him away when he shoved Clementine and I punched him. We started to fight more and I had him pinned to the ground as I slammed my fist into his face and I was pulled back.

“DON’T FUCKING TOUCH HER YOU FUCKING MORON!” I yelled to him and I glare at him as he got up.

“You lay a finger on her or any of these kids and I’ll break your god damn arms.” I tell him and my head began to hurt more. He glares at me.

“Is violence always the answer for you people? You teach kids to act like this and they’ll be monsters, they won’t be any better than those people that locked you up.” He says.

“No, big fucking difference pal, I’m beating the hell out of you for touching Clem and trying to take her boy, and if you think about touching Tennessee, I will break your god damn fucking legs.” I threaten him and he glares at me. He stands up and I watch him carefully.

“You have no idea what you are doing.” He says.

“Neither do you fucker, now back off.” I tell him and he looks at me and I glare more at him then we hear it, water splashing and walkers groaning and I look to Clem and the kids.

“Let’s go.” I say and we head to one of the cave openings and we get out to the opening outside and out of the cave. I looked around and didn’t see James and I shake my head as I look to AJ and we began walking. I looked around a bit and the area did look a bit familiar to me but not too sure. I look to Hear some rustling in the trees and I stop as I look around and so does Clementine as we look around. I then see Louis walking out the tree line and I sigh.

“Jesus man, we’re glad to see you.” I say as I walk up to him and he gives me a hug and then the boys run up to him and Clem hugs him too.

“Thank god you guys are ok.” He says and I nod.

“Dude your eye.” He says and I nod.

“Yea I know.” I mumbled as we began walking.

“Can you see?” He asked.

“No… No, I can’t but right now we need to get everyone home.” I say.

“You’re in luck, we’re near the old bridge.” He says and I nod.

“I knew this place look familiar.” I say and he nods as we walk and I rub my head a bit and looked to see blood.

“Ruby can patch you up.” He says and I nod.

“Sophie is with her?” I asked and he nods.

“Yea… she is, we couldn’t find Minnie though.” I hear him say and I nod as we walk more and I look to Clementine as we walked more. I decided to ask some questions to continue our small game.

“So…. Clementine…. What is your favorite memory before the dead walked?” I asked and Louis looked to me and I looked to him then back to her.

“I remember finding a raccoon in my treehouse.” She says and I chuckle.

“Raccoon hu?” I asked and she nodded.

“Funny enough a few years back when AJ wasn’t even born yet, I got to see a family of raccoons.” She says and I chuckle.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“I remember I would play in my treehouse for hours.” She says as she talked more about her old home.

“A princess really?” Louis asked and Clem nods.

“With frills and a tiara?” I asked.

“And a sword, I was a warrior Princess.” She says and we chuckle a bit.

“Alright describe your house.” Louis says.

“It was a white house.” She says.

“Like a white house or The White House?” Louis asked and I rolled my eyes as Clem laughed a bit. It wasn’t long till we finally got to the bridge and I head up to the bridge with Louis as we walked on it to make sure it was safe. When it was Clementine let the boys walk across first and then she followed behind them. I heard some walkers and I watched Clementine carefully. I then heard singing.

“Never mind the darkness.” I hear and look around, I saw that the others didn’t seem to hear it so it might be in my head.

“Never mind the storm.” I hear and I look to the far end of the bridge as Clementine climbed over the bed of a trailer that was attached to the truck.

“Do ya’ll hear that?” I asked.

“Hear wha-.”

“Never mind the blood red moon…. The night will be over soon.” I hear and look to Louis who looked around with me and I see Minnie walking up to us. An Axe in her hand and I’m about to climb over the trailer before I get a look at her face in the moonlight.

“Vincent… Tennessee… I found you two.” She says and I back up a it. Her face looked like someone or a walker took a bite out of it, her arm was bloody and jacket was torn a bit. I back up a bit when I see her and she looked to me sadly.

“Minnie?” I asked and Tenn stands next to me.

“You guys, she’s been bitten.” I hear louis says and I shake my head a bit.

“We just need Sophie.” I hear and then I see her raise something up from her hand.

“GET DOWN!” I hear and I along with Tenn are dragged down by Louis and Clem as a shot rang out and I shake my head.

“Oh god.” I say and I stay down and I shake my head a bit as I look to Clementine and she looked to me.

“We have to go now.” Louis says and I nod as we began to work on getting the kids across but Tennessee wouldn’t move.

“Tenn lets go, now.” I tell him.

“But Minnie she’s hurt.” He says and another shot rings out and I look up to see Clem and Minnie fighting.

“LOUIS GET TENN ACROSS!” I yell and he nods and I see him try and I help Clementine by grabbing Minnie from behind and away from Clementine and I shove her away and she points her gun at Clementine.

“Don’t do it Minnie.” I say and I look to Louis who was trying hard to Get Tenn across.

“Don’t take him away from me, You and Tenn can.. can be with me.” She says and I shake my head at her.

“You’re dying.” I tell her.

“Yes but, it’s ok, you and Tenn can join me.” She says as she raised her gun at Tenn and I grab her arm and I point the gun up and a Walker grabbed Minnie and I back up as they start eating her. I feel the vomit raising up and I turn to see Tenn still not listening to Louis and I look to Minnie and Clementine and I go to Clem.

“Go over I have Tenn.” I tell her and she looked to me and she nods as She gets Louis and they go over to AJ. I grab Tenn as he was about to go to Minnie but I stopped him.

“She’s gone, Tenn we have to go now.” I say and see some walkers getting closer to us.

“Tenn we have to go now please listen to me.” I tell him and I see AJ raising his gun so I make a quick decision and I pick Tenn up and throw him over to the other side and I look as a walker tried to bite me but I backed up and looked down as I looked to the others I didn’t have enough room to make a jump to get across the bridge so I went down in between the broken bridge and I fell into the rushing river as the walkers fell in after me and I was rushed away by the rough currents. I heard the others yell out my name as my head went under the waters.


	9. Winter Wedding Talk

(Vincent’s Pov)

I lifted my head up from the water as the current kept dragging me down the river and fast. I looked around as I tried to find something to grab onto but there was nothing at the moment. I tried to get closer to the land but that didn’t work and the water splashed in my face once again and dragged me under the water. I came back up and coughed up some water and I felt something hit my back hard and I turn to grab whatever it was and it was a boulder. I held on and looked around as best as I could and I saw some walkers rush past me from the currents pull and some water crashes into me and I cough more as I look around more for anything.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I mumbled as I look around more and I see some trees off to the side that were leaning down low enough for me to grab. I move as best as I could from the boulder and another walker passes by and grabbed my arm and in fear, I let go to grab my arm from the walker. I hit it and miss the tree but I was able to grab a log off on the side as the walker grabbed my leg and tried to bite it. I kicked it a few times in the head before it finally let go of me and I pull myself up onto the log and I coughed a few times and shivered from the cold and being soaking wet didn’t help. I pulled myself up more and I finally got to the land and I laid on the dirt as I look to the star.

“Fuck.” I mumbled as I hear walkers and get up slowly and fall back down because my leg hurt like hell. I groan silently as I move closer to the tree and I look at my pant leg and pulled it up. There wasn’t a bite mark on me and I was glad for that.

“Oh, thank god.” I say to myself as I get up slowly and lean on the tree. I think my ankle was just twisted and if it was broken well it wouldn’t matter it wasn’t going to get better any time soon. I grab a stick that was strong enough for me to lean on and I walk slowly in the direction I had been dragged from. The sun was just starting to raise up high in the sky and I cough a bit.

“Fuck… probably got a cold.” I mumble to myself as I walk more and I get to the bridge. I look around and don’t see a lot of walkers, maybe two to three of them so I walk quietly past them. I saw a long fence on the side and I shake my head as I walk in the direction of the school. I have no clue how long I was walking but I got closer and closer to the school and I heard some talking.

“We have to go find him god damn it.” I hear and it sounded like Clementine.

“We will, I promise we will.” I hear Louis say and I stop as I take a break and take a seat. My head was pounding, I don’t feel good my ankle hurts and I just wanted to sleep.

“GUY!” I hear someone yell as I finally black out. I have no idea on how long I was out for but I wake up a bit to see Ruby looking me over.

“Oh, thank god you’re awake.” She says and I cough a bit as I try to sit up and she helped me up a bit.

“Here take these.” She says and hands me some pills and I take them and drink the water she gave me.

“How… How long have I been out?” I asked as I looked to her.

“Two days, well Three days now.” She says and I nod and cough more and I cover my mouth as I cough more.

“I’ll go get Clementine; she’s been so worried about you.” She says and I shake my head as I cough more and I close my eyes a bit.

“S-sorry.” I cough as I look at her again.

“It’s fine, we tried to keep you warm.” She says as she pulls the blanket closer to me and I shiver a bit and I look to the wall.

“Shit, sorry um… where is Clem?” I asked as I looked at her.

“She’s outside I ‘ll go get her for you.” She says and I nod as I pull the blanket closer to me and I look outside to see some snow and I shiver more and I look around and I get up slowly and felt a boot on my leg and looked down to see just that. It was a medical boot that we had left in the nurses’ office and I cough a bit as I get up and the door opened just as I got to my closet and I opened the closet door.

“Vincent, lay back down.” I hear and I turn to see Clementine, and Ruby looking at me, Ruby covering her eyes and I look to see I have no shirt on and I grabbed the jacket and put it on.

“S-Sorry I was… c-cold.” I stutter out a bit as Clementine came up to me and took me back to the bed.

“You need to rest.” She says.

“I am… I am.” I try to say but I cough again and sneeze as I cover my mouth and nose and I close my eyes a bit.

“I know.” She says and I Hear the door close as I put the blanket over me and cover myself up more and I shiver a bit.

“I can ask Omar to make some soup, I mean he’s making soup but you know what I mean.” She says and I chuckle a bit.

“Ok… yea.” I say and I lean on her a bit and she rubs my back a bit as I try to relax as best as I could.

“What happened?” I asked as I close my eyes a bit and listen to her.

“When you fell in the water Louis was about to dive into the water to get you.” She says and I chuckle a bit and I cough again.

“R-really?” I asked and I felt her nod a bit and I hold her hand.

“Yea… I don’t know what happened to you but I know that Willy called out to us and we saw you leaning on a tree… god you looked like death.” She says and I chuckle a bit at this.

“Sorry.” I mumbled.

“Don’t be… Tenn blamed himself for what happened to you.” She says.

“I need to talk to him.” I mumbled as I pulled the blanket closer to me and I shivered a bit.

“When you get better.” She says and I nod as I open my eyes again and look at the window.

“It’s snowing a lot.” She says and I nod.

“That’s bad.” I joke and she nods and I look to her.

“You been keeping warm?” I asked as I touched her and she nods.

“Yea, we have the fireplace in the music room going constantly.” She says and I nod.

“Yea, I can feel that.” I tell her as I do feel a bit warm.

“We boarded up the windows a bit to keep the whole building warm, and we got the greenhouse started, but we can’t plant anything yet, and we did get some spare wood for inside and outside.” She says and I nod again tiredly.

“I’ll go get that soup.” I hear and I stop her as she moves a bit from me. I pull her to me and I hug her.

“Vincent?” She asked but I kept quiet for a bit.

“You ok?” She asked and I nodded as I let her go.

“Sorry I just… I just wanted to hug you.” I say and smile a bit as she smiles back to me and she nods a bit and leaves once more to go and get the soup. I look to the side and watch as the snow falls and I cough a bit again and I cover my mouth as I do. I slowly get up again and sit at my desk and watch the snow and I see something walking by the school and it didn’t look like a walker to me. I get up more and I see that the person was wearing a bright jacket I get up more and look closer that is until the door opened. I turned to see Clementine with some soup as she looked to me.

“Can’t stay in the bed hu?” She asked as she came over to me and I looked at her.

“Hey, did someone else come to the school while I was out?” I asked and she looked at me and then went over to the window.

“Oh, yea that’s Mariana, Gabes sister, she was taken by a member in Jones Group when they escaped the walls of the New Frontier.” She says and I look to see the girl come in the gate and head into the building.

“So, her brother doesn’t know that she’s alive?” I asked and she nods as she sits down next to me and sets the soup on the desk and I looked to it then her.

“Omar says to eat this, you’ll feel a lot better.” She says and I nod as I take the spoon and eat some of the soup.

“You know once you get better, you can meet Mariana, she’s really nice, well to me she was.” She says and I chuckle.

“Oh?” I asked and she smiles and nods as I finish up half the soup. I look out the window again and I rub my head a bit as I watch the snow more.

“Yea… it’s ok that she stays right?” She asked and I nod a bit as I watch the snow more. As time passed, I finally got better and was able to walk around more; I was finally able to formally meet Mariana as I walked around the school more. Ruby checked up on me and I was currently sitting by the fire in the music room strumming my guitar for AJ as him and Tenn drew on some spare papers we had found. Tenn was teaching AJ how to draw eyes and I stopped playing as Louis came walking in.

“You ok?” He asked me and I nod as he sits at the piano and slowly presses on a few keys as I watch him.

“Hey Vincent…. Remember the song that Minnie would sing to us?” Tenn asked and I look over to him and nod.

“Yea… she called it what? Um… don’t be afraid or something?” I asked as he looked at me more and nods a bit.

“Yea that’s it.” He says.

“Why do you ask?” I asked him about this and he shrugs.

“I miss hearing it, but.” He tried to say and I look to Louis and the other kids came in the music room to get warmed up from the snow. Louis started to play a few keys of the song and I looked to my guitar and I sighed a bit.

“Come on Vincent, you know the song better than I do.” Louis says as he continued to play it.

“I… fine I’ll sing the damn song.” I say as I set my guitar down and I looked to Clementine who looked at me with a smile. I close my eyes a bit as louis replayed the beginning of the song and I tried to remember it. I keep my eyes closed as I started to sing.

“Never mind the darkness…. Never mind the storm…. Never mind the bloodred Moon…. The night will be over soon.” I sang a bit as I opened my eyes and looked at the flames a bit.

“The night will be over soon… bush away the sorrow, Bush away the tears, sing away your heavy heart, the night will be over soon, the night will be over soon.” I sing again and look to everyone and then away as Louis continued to play his piano.

“For every night go quiet, and every moon grows blue, beyond the dark comes something new, the sun will be rising soon, the sun will be rising soon… the sun will be rising soon.” I finished as I looked down at my legs and I remembered when Minnie would sing the song. I look at Sophie from the corner of my eye and she is just watching Tenn and I rub my face. I already mourned for Minnie once, but then I found out she was alive, then she’s gone again and I can’t help but feel sad that she’s actually gone and this time it was for good.

“That was really nice.” Mariana says and I nod.

“Yea?... Minnie use to sing it a lot when we were all scared… when all this started or when kids were afraid of the storms…. She was so sweet and kind and…. God she never wanted to hurt walkers, she wasn’t able to.” I tell her and I looked to everyone then turned back to the flames.

“The Minnie on the boat wasn’t the real Minnie, she was long gone and…. Then…. She was gone.” I say and look at my hands a bit.

“We know you miss her.” Ruby says and I shake my head a bit.

“I already mourned for her; I shouldn’t be sad that she’s gone now.” I say and I look at Sophie a bit as she just looked to Tenn.

“She did miss all of you guys though…. When we got to the delta, she tried to convince them to never come back here to take you guys, to send us back too… but you know that didn’t work.” She says and I look away.

“Family is important, especially in this day and age.” Clementine says and I look at her.

“Yea… I miss my Ma and Pa, even though they sent me here.” Ruby says.

“My parents were probably worried when they heard about all this.” Louis says and everyone talked about their parents, all excepts, Clementine, AJ, and I.

“I… I heard my mom say she loved me one last time… on an answering machine back at my house… when she was in Savanna.” Clementine says.

“What about your dad?” Louis asked and I looked to him as he gave her a sad look.

“She told us how a crazy man bit him and they were in a hospital…. He was long gone.” She says with a tear in her eye and I went over to her and I hugged her gently on the side.

“I never knew my parents.” AJ says and looks at us.

“But Clementine has told me a lot about them, so I know what they were kind of like, and plus Clem acts like my mom so I have a new mom.” He says to us and I smile a bit as Clem hugged him gently.

“And Vincent can be your dad.” Louis joked and I punched his leg as everyone laughed at his comment.

“If he wants too, I don’t mind.” He says and I nod to him.

“Thanks AJ.” I tell him and he smiles as he gets closer to Clem to keep warm. I took my jacket off of me and I place it on them both and I watch the flames more.

“That would make you his crazy uncle.” Aasim says.

“And you the weird Grandpa.” Louis says to him.

“Wait how did I become a grandpa?” Aasim asked and I chuckled.

“Ah it would be more like Ruby is our mom.” I joke and she looked at me.

“Ok so, I would be AJ’s uncle, Ruby would be his grandma, Aasim would be the grandpa cause him and Ruby should totally date now, Omar is the awesome dad that makes a mean meal, Sophie would be his sister and Tenn would be his brother.” Louis says and I chuckle.

“Then Clem and Vincent are his parents.” Louis says and again I shove him.

“Ok crazy guy, thanks for our fascinating new family tree.” I say and he nods.

“Your welcome I try my best.” He says.

“Wait, you forgot Mitch and Willy.” Tenn says as they came in through the door.

“Oh right, Willy is AJ’s new cousin, and Mitch is… also AJ’s cousin.” Louis says and they look at us confused and I chuckle.

“Louis mad a new family tree with all of us.” I explained and they nod as they sit by the flames too. The room was a comfortable warmth for all of us as we just sat around and talked a bit.

“When all of this started, Gabe and I had no clue as to what was going on, I was about seven and he was eight.” Mariana says and I nod.

“So, our… our grandfather just passed away too… from cancer… and I was so… stupid but he opened his eyes and he was awake and I went to get him some juice like he always gets when he wakes up… I was going back and my grandma was telling me that he was… sleeping.” Mariana explained and I watched her more.

“I told them no, he was awake and they were shocked… then we all went to go check on him… next thing I know uncle Hector was trying to talk to grandpa and grandpa attacked him, then Uncle Javie and my dad stopped my grandpa and my grandmother just… he bit her when she got to close and it was on the face… my father went to take her and Hector to the hospital and that was the last time we saw them.” She tells us and I sigh a bit.

“How did you guys find out?” She asked us and I rubbed my arm.

“We… we were all at the old lake just a mile from here, because we were good we got to go swimming there… anyway a strange man came walking and of course one of the other kids wanted to be an ass and fuck around with the man while the rest of us wanted to just leave and tell the teachers about it… but then the man turned and there were maggots on his face and just…. he took a huge bite out of… shit I think it was Eric?” Ruby says and I nod.

“He took a huge bite out of Erics’ neck and we all took him back after Louis and I both shoved the man away and we all just ran…. But all the adults except for Mrs. Martin.” I say and I look to everyone.

“Eric died and we were all freaking out as Mrs. Martin went to go call an ambulance but then he got up and Vincent checked on him asking if he was ok.” Omar says.

“But then Eric attacked me and… Louis hit him in the head with an old chair leg and we though it knocked him out but… it killed him... again.” Aasim says and we all look at her.

“We had no clue what was going on till the radio announced that the dead were walking and people were dying… the other teachers never came back which pissed us all off, that they were going to leave us all to die here…. After that Mrs. Martin taught us as best as she could with medicine, mostly Ruby though since some of us were just…. angry.” I say and rub Clementine’s side a bit as I watched everyone.

“Or we didn’t believe any of it, like the little kids had no clue and when we tried to explain it, they said we were lying about this and that they didn’t have to listen to us…. After that the older kids started to take charge and we just… tried to keep the kids safe.” Mitch says and I rub my neck.

“After time kids started to die and we just… kept trying to live.” Louis says.

“My babysitter and I hid in my treehouse when the dead started to walk… Sandra went to go try and get some help but she ended up getting bit and she went into the house and locked herself in, it was a few days later when I heard a car crash and I didn’t leave until a day later to check it out and I did go and checked it out… that’s when I technically first met Lee… he was telling me to call for help there was a shooting…. I was scared and ran back to my home and back in my treehouse… he came over the fence and I had a hammer in my hand ready to drop it on his head if he came up the ladder and I hear him say something about filling my tea cup with bourbon.” She says and I chuckle a bit at this information.

“Anyway, he got in my house and I look through the door of my treehouse and see he found my dad’s walkie talkie… I then talk to him on it told him to keep quiet and that the monsters could hear him… he said his name was Lee, I told him I was Clementine, he was thirty-seven years old, and he asked me where my parents were… I told him they left me with a babysitter and I see Sandra from behind him and all I did was shout and hide in my treehouse again…. I heard him yell and I… grabbed the hammer and handed it to him as he bashed Sandra’s head with it, over and over till she stopped moving…. After that Lee asked if I was ok and hugged me as I was scared, his leg was hurt so we left at night not knowing about how dangerous it was but we found Shawn and the officer who were in my neighborhood and we helped them and Shawn took us to his farm.” Clementine says and I hold her to me. She looked up to me a bit and I look at Sophie once more.

“Met a lot of people over time, lost a lot of people… AJ and I are the last of our original groups.” She says and I look as AJ had fallen asleep on her and she held him close.

“When AJ was taken away from me… I was so scared and so mad… I started to hate people, I hated anyone that tried to wrong me, or I would stay away from people, it’s all I could do… but when I found him again… I cried, I… I kept him away from people too after all he had been through… they had him locked up in a damn locker for fuck sake… if I hadn’t come, he would have died.” She says and I look at her again.

“I’m sorry you and him went through that.” Louis says and I nod agreeing with him on this.

“You know, it’s only a few more weeks till Christmas? We could have a little Christmas Party?” Louis says and I hold Clementines hand a bit.

“Sounds fun.” Willy says and I nod a bit and I just look down at our hands link together and I think.

“You know what’s really good at Christmas?” Ruby asked and I look to her.

“What?” all the kids ask and I just look at clementine who looks back at me and we both smile at each other and I feel like chuckling.

“Weddings.” She says and I hear laughing and I look around confused.

“Wait what?” I asked and looked around.

“Ruby says weddings are good on Christmas.” Mitch laughed and I think.

“What? Wedding are nice, I remember my sisters and I would talk about the winter weddings.” Ruby says and I look at her and rub my neck.

“Yea but they use to be comfortable with heaters, electricity, and so on…. Wait why are we talking about weddings?” Aasim says and I smirk.

“Ooooh is Ruby suggesting something for her and Aasims future?” I asked her and she turns red.

“No, I remember just having fun with my sisters when planning out their wedding.” She says and I chuckle at this.

“Weddings are nice though.” I say and everyone looked at me.

“Thank you.” Ruby says and I nod as I think.

“I actually remember there was a wedding in my town once, it was of an elderly couple…. they were both males, and the had a beautiful wedding, white and gold with red roses here and there.” I say and I chuckle.

“And one of them wore a suit with white frills and said ‘Why yes this is my wedding dress and also my Sunday best’.” I say and Clem giggled.

“He waited years to say that on a Sunday…. They got married a week after gay marriage was legalized, they waited years for their moment to proudly display their wedding into the papers…. but you still had people who didn’t like it.” I say as I slowly stroke the back of Clems hand with my thumb.

“So, you saying you want to marry Clementine? Oooh double wedding.” Louis says and I look at him and let go of Clems hand and try to stop him.

“No, no, no, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” I say.

“So, you don’t want to marry Clementine?” He asked.

“Wait that’s not what I.”

“So, you do?” Ruby asked and I look to Clem who’s laughing at this.

“Ok, hey calm down you two.” Clem says as she stops them.

“Come on a wedding would make us all happy.” Louis says.

“Then you marry your chair leg.” I tell him.

“Maybe I will.” He says and I shake my head.

“What is a wedding by the way?” AJ asked and I look to him.

“It’s a nice get together of two families becoming one.” Louis says and AJ looked at him a bit.

“So, we can be a family?” AJ asked as he looked to Clementine and me.

“I mean we can be a family without a wedding.” I say.

“But everyone says that weddings are nice, and you did too.” He says and I rub my neck at being trapped in this.

“Well, yea, they can be nice but not everyone gets married with a wedding, my parents got married through a courtroom…. Wait hold on why are we only talking about Clementine and I? what about Ruby and Aasim, or Louis and his chair leg?” I asked as I looked to everyone.

“Hey I don’t care about weddings, but if I can set off some fireworks, I could care a little.” He says.

“Oh yea, fireworks.” Willy says and I groan as everyone laughed as I laid back careful to not hit the flames of the fire.

“I didn’t even propose to you and they want a wedding.” I say and Clementine laughed a bit and pats my head gently.

“It’s ok.” She says and I look at her. As the days passed and we worked a lot to keep everyone warmed and fed, I slept in my room and Clementine would sleep with me, AJ would also sleep in here sometimes when he was scared or when it was a bit to cold, the other kids would come in as well, like I said before I was smart to not bust my windows at the time. But at this time Clementine and I were alone in my room and I was watching her as she was reading a book that she had found when we went on our run this afternoon. She was laying her head on my chest a bit so I could also see the pages and read along with her. I am a slow reader though but she didn’t mind that; I was rubbing her arm gently as the candle was our only source of light.

“Strange book.” I say as she nods a bit.

“I think this is one of those romance books that my mom used to read.” She says and I chuckle as I close the book and she looked up to me.

“I may not be able to take you on an amazing trip to the distant lands of this world but we could take a walk once the weather gets warmer and I can pick some flowers for you.” I say and she kisses me and I smile a bit as I kiss her back. It didn’t last long till there was some knocking on the door. I sigh a bit and I left the bed and opened the door to see Louis looking

at me.

“Something up?” I asked.

“Yea there’s people snooping around the gate.” He whispers and I nod as I look to clementine and then him.

“I’ll be out in a bit, just keep watch.” I say and he nods as I go and grab my boots and put them on.

“Something up?” Clem asked as I finished tying up my boots.

“Louis says some people may be snooping around the gate, just going to go with him to make sure that no one is.” I say as I grab the jean jacket Clem had found for me that had some wool lining on the inside to keep me warm. I watch her get up and I stop her.

“No, it’s fine, I got it, relax.” I tell her.

“No, I can help, besides, what if it’s Kenny and the others?” she asked and I sigh and nod.

“Alright be quick.” I say and she nods as she goes and grabs her jacket and shoes and I start to walk out and I grabbed my rifle. I look around as the snow falls a bit more there’s got to be at least a foot of snow on the ground by now as Louis and I begin to walk to the fence and I look around.

“Hello?” I asked as I opened the gate a bit and look around and see a flame light, and I look to Louis and then I see Clementine who had her pistol in hand and I point to the light. Louis and Clementine both nod and we head out the gate and Louis locks it and we head to the light to see what was going on. It took us a bit as we hid from the light just in case people were around it, I hold my rifle out as I look and I see a familiar green army jacket.

“Kenny.” Clem says as the man turns and so do the others.

“Clementine.” He says as she comes up and hugs him.

“Nice to see ya’ll again… want to come back to the school? It’s warm.” I suggest and Kenny looked to me and rubbed his neck.

“I uh… if that’s ok with ya’ll.” He asked and I nod as we take them to the school.

“You should know that you guys are welcomed to stop by any time.” Louis says and Kenny nods.

“Thank you, and we didn’t know we passed the school.” Javie says and I look around a bit.

“It’s fine.” I say as we get to the gate and I think.

“Hey do you guys know a Mariana, by any chance?” I asked as I looked to them.

“Uh… my niece?” Javie asked and I nod and he looked to me then Clementine and back to me.

“You…. You aren’t?” he asked and I shook my head.

“But right now, she’s asleep and so is everyone else, we’re really tired from working and ya’ll do need to warm up.” I say as Louis opens the door for them and we all go inside the school as I go to the music room and set some more wood on the flames to keep it going. I stand next to it as the others get close to the fire and Clementine stands in front of me and I hold her waist gently.

“Um.” I hear and look at Kenny and I move my hands away. Much to Clementines’ disappointment that is and I don’t blame her, I wanted to hold her to me.

“So anyway, ya’ll can stay in here to stay warm, and we will head to our rooms, the wood is there if it starts to die down if any of you decide to stay up or anything.” I explained as I pointed to the fire. They nod as they get comfortable and I nod as I go and get them something to eat. Clementine followed me and helped me with the bowls and I look at Louis who was tired.

“Hey man, go to bed, Clementine and I got this.” I say and he nods a bit as he sets his chair leg to the wall and heads to the dorm rooms and I nod as I help clementine with the bowls and spoons and we head into the music room and we got the food ready and handed the group of people the food.

“So, my sister is Alive still?” Gabe asked and I nod.

“Yea, she was walking past the school and well, we let her stay when she recognized Clementine.” I explained and they all nod.

“This is amazing.” Javie says as he looked to Gabe and Kate.

“Well thank you for taking care of her.” Kate says and we nod and I look to the window a bit to see that it was still dark out.

“Alright, Clementine and I are going to head to bed, if you need anything you know where we will be, your old rooms haven’t been touched so if you want to head to them the doors are open.” I explained and they nodded as they ate the rest of their food and got warmed up by the fire. I took Clementine back to my room as I opened the door for her she pulls me in by grabbing my jacket and she kissed me. I kiss her back and I chuckle as she giggled.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Your beard tickles.” She says and I chuckle again.

“Is that so?” I asked and she nods and I kiss her again and she giggled again and I pick her up and I take her over to the bed and lay her down on it.

“You know, we can be very quiet.” I say and she looks to me and thinks.

“Maybe.” She teases and I kiss her neck a bit and then there’s another knock on the door and I sigh a bit as I stand up and open the door to see AJ with his disco broccoli toy that he had when he first came her.

“Hey bud what’s up?” I asked.

“I uh… had a bad dream.” He says somewhat ashamed and I look at him a bit and let him inside the room as he looked to the ground.

“Hey no shame in bad dreams, I still get them.” I tell him.

“Is that why clementine sleeps with you? She scares the bad dreams away.” He says and I wanted to laugh as Clementine looked at me and covered her mouth a bit to keep her laugh from busting out.

“Yea, she really helps with bad dreams.” I say and I pick him up and I set him on his bed and I look at him.

“You want to sleep in here tonight?” I asked and he nods a bit and I nod back as I cover him with the blanket and I rub his shoulder a bit then his back. It helped him relax as I kept rubbing his back till, he finally fell asleep and I slowly got off the bed and went over to Clementine who looked at me as she scooted over on the bed and I laid next to her. I wrapped my arms around her waist and look at her as she looked to me.

“You know, it isn’t a lie but you do act like a parental figure for AJ.” She says and I look at her.

“Yea?” I asked and she nods and I kiss her cheek gently and she looked at me more.

“You know, when everyone was talking about weddings and stuff it got me thinking.” I say and she looked at me and I pull her closer to me and I look at her.

“If you and I last…. Till the spring… or summer… MAYBE…. If you would like… we could? Have a small wedding?” I suggested and she looks at me and I rub her hip gently. She thinks for a bit.

“You don’t have to answer me now, you can tell me in the spring or summer, it’s your choice.” I tell her and she nods.

“Alright, I’ll tell you in the spring.” She says and I nod as she then kissed my cheek. I turn in the bed real quick as I blow out the candle and turn back to her as we both finally fell asleep.


	10. The Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DO NOT SKIM OVER THIS STORY!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DO NOT SKIM OVER THIS STORY!

(Vincent’s Pov)

As the time passed morning had come and I got up from the bed just to see some of the stars still out. I slowly got up as I rubbed my face a bit and I place my hands on my legs as I look to the window a bit more and I get up. I walk to my closet and grabbed a jacket and walked out he room and to the fireplace in the music room. I see Kenny and the others up as I grab the empty bucket to get some snow for water.

“You sleep good?” I asked as I looked to them.

“Yes, we did, thank you.” Javie says and I nod.

“Mariana will come down later for breakfast.” I mumbled as I went out to the front of the school and I filled the bucket to the top with snow. I took it back inside to the fireplace and set it close by so it could melt. I look up to see Louis and the others coming into the music room and I wave at them and then Omar comes up to me.

“I’ll start on breakfast soon.” He says and I nod.

“I’ll get Clementine her coffee.” I yawned as I got back up.

“It’s in the kitchen like always.” He says and I nod as I head out. I walked to the old kitchen and I took a look at the supplies that we had and I nod as I grab Clementine’s coffee and I got a little warmer that we used to heat up the coffee or anything else. I grabbed a mug and poured in some of the bottled water and I put the instant coffee in it and wait. I hear some footsteps and I look up to see Mariana.

“Morning.” I say and she nods.

“Hmm Aasim wanted me to ask if there was an extra water bottle he could use.” She says and I nod as I give her the one I had in my hand.

“Guess you haven’t been in the music room yet hu?” I asked and she shook her head no.

“No why?”

“Hmm, just wait, you’ll see.” I tell her and she nods as I watch Clems coffee. Once done I took it off the burner and I head to the music room just in time to see Clementine and AJ heading to the door.

“Got your coffee.” I announce and she looked to me and smiled a bit.

“Thanks, I’m going to need it for this day.” She says and I nod as I hand it to her and she takes a drink. I open the door for them and Mariana screams as she runs up to her Uncle and Brother.

“Oh my god, Gabe, Javie, Kate.” She says as she sees Kate and hugs her as well. I watch them and then I look to Clementine as she heads over to Kenny. I think a bit and clear my throat.

“So, uh… I have a major question to ask you guys.” I say and everyone looked to me and I rubbed my face. I need to find an eyepatch soon these bandages were bothering me.

“When uh…. when Lilly and them had me locked up…. Kenny did you kill a young girl in their group?” I asked him.

“Kenny wouldn’t do that.” Clementine says.

“I want to hear it from him, and the others, Lilly was after them, she told me that he killed a young girl and the others had a part in it, I just want to know… I don’t want dangerous people here anymore.” I say as I look at everyone.

“You said she was after Ya’ll.” Kenny says.

“She was, but she was so keen on me telling her where you four went to, now were you part of her group or did you kill a little girl there?” I asked and they looked at me more.

“I want an answer now.” I demanded.

“Vincent, Kenny would-.” Clem tried to say but I lifted my hand up to stop her.

“I was beaten because I didn’t tell Lilly where they went, I want to know if my intuition was right and that they actually didn’t hurt anyone…. And them keeping quiet…. Isn’t helping them.” I say as I look to Kenny.

“The…. I didn’t hurt anyone; I didn’t kill a little kid.” He tells me and I look to the others.

“Is this true?” I asked and I saw Gabe moving a bit.

“Gabe?” I asked and he looked to me.

“He didn’t.” He says and I watch him more as he fidgeted more.

“Who did?” I asked.

“Who?” Louis asked.

“He’s moving around a lot; people sometimes do that when they’re nervous about something.” Ruby says and I nod as I watch him.

“Kenny didn’t hurt anyone…. He took the wrap for me.” He says and I watch him.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why what? Look he doesn’t have to tell you anything.” Kenny says.

“He better or ya’ll better, I’m not going to have anyone in my group get hurt by someone in yours, you all should know this by now.” I say to everyone. They look at me and I look back to Gabe.

“Who did you kill and why?” I asked him.

“…. I don’t know her name.” He says and I look at him.

“But she was threatening to give away our plan to leave.” He said.

“It was like Carvers all over again.” Kenny said.

“The girl you killed was Robin…. Her name was Robin.” Sophie says and I look at her.

“Ok… we…. Look…. Hmm.” I tried to think but really couldn’t.

“You can stay but one step out of line and you all are gone.” I say as I look at them.

“That’s fair.” Javie says.

“The hell it is, you can’t just throw us out cause of what the boy did, and he was scared about the girl blabbing.” He says and I look to him shocked.

“Excuse you?” I asked and he looked to me.

“You don’t get to run this place; you have no fucking-.” I tried to say but he stopped me.

“We can take on a bunch of kids, so watch it.”

“KENNY!” Clementine yelled at him and I look at all the others and then him.

“Hand your weapons over right now, you want to threaten us I swear to god I’ll make sure your brains get blown on the walls.” I threatened and he looked to me.

“I ain’t giving up nothing.” He says.

“Kenny, stop this now.” Clementine says and I glare at him more as he walked up to me and Clementine got between us and I glare at him in the eye.

“You, will not threaten us and think we’re going to listen to you.” I tell him.

“You think you know everything don’t you? Well you don’t, you have no clue what it is like to be taken by people and be captive, you know nothing.” He says and I look at him and clench my fists. I saw Louis about to talk but I spoke instead.

“You know what, no I have no god damn clue what it’s like to be kept captive, I don’t and I’m glad that I haven’t that’s nothing to feel bad about just like you don’t have to feel bad about people abandoning you like we did, we had adults who we were entrusted to, leave us because they were assholes and they left us to die, only one adult stayed and she’s gone.” I say and he glared at me.

“I don’t have to listen to you.” He says.

“Oh, you’re mad cause I’m telling you off? I don’t give two fucks on how old you are, I’m done with adults and their bullshit thinking that just cause we’re younger that we don’t know shit, but we do… we lost friends, families, we were abandoned, we fought, and these kids.” I said and pointed to everyone in my group and then I looked to Kenny.

“These kids, fought a bunch of adults, shooting at them, walkers, all the dangerous things in this world, and they fucking lived, they blew up a god damn raiders boat and got rid of the bad people that wanted us to fight in their war, you aren’t special Kenny, no one is, we all have issues, you aren’t the only one, only thing is, I am going to keep them safe, and I’M telling you that you are going to give up your weapons so no one in my group gets killed because of you, or that fucker over there.” I said and pointed to Gabe.

“I’m not going to have some kid who killed a girl just cause someone was going to blab, because if you guys decide you want to take over, we can just have you go to the gate and no one will die.” I tell him and he looked to me more. He kept glaring and I shake my head.

“Kenny please, just do it.” Kate says.

“The hell I will.” He says.

“Hey calm down, he is right, Kenny they let us in they didn’t force us to come in or anything.” Javie says.

“Kenny it’s best if you do it, you trust me don’t you?” Clementine asked him and I watch as he sighed and handed over his gun and Knife to Clementine and the others did it as well. I just shake my head and we get the day going like normal. We work a bit outside getting wood for the fire to keep us warn, heading to the greenhouse and looking at the food, I helped Ruby get some plants for medicine and then Clementine and I went out for a bit of a hunt. I had my rifle with me and I looked to Clementine who had her pistol.

“You know Kenny needs to learn to listen to people.” I say as I look around.

“Vincent please don’t, just stop.” She says.

“I’m just saying.” I mumbled and I see a lone deer and I’m lining up the shot.

“Ok, I know but right now just drop it.” She says and I sigh a bit and lower the rifle.

“No, we need to talk about this, it’s not going to end with him, look I know he’s like a mentor to you but the next time he gets out of line…. I’m sorry but I can’t have that.” I say as we look at each other.

“You understand, that right? And especially with Gabe killing someone, what if he goes after Sophie? Or worse AJ?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t.”

“You don’t know what he will do.” I say to her.

“I had no idea what you guys would do to me after AJ shot Marlon, I know a few people wanted to hurt us, don’t lie about that, but you… you still defended us, you gave us a chance, give them a chance too.” She says.

“I am giving them a chance; I’m just saying that Kenny cannot sit there and play victim.” I tell her.

“He isn’t.”

“Oh my god, he has and always has, you told me that he blamed you for what’s her names death.” I say.

“Sarita.” She tells me and I nod.

“Right, he had the audacity to tell an eleven year old girl that it was all her fault that a grown woman died and he was no where near her to help her, he wanted to tell you that YOU were wrong to bring up Lee… a man you looked up to since he helped you when this world went to shit, you weren’t allowed to show your sadness or tell someone about what happened to you, because of people like Kenny who want to think they’re the only ones who have been hurt…. I’ve been hurt, Louis has been hurt, Ruby, Tenn, Minnie, Sophie, Mitch, Willy, all of us, everyone has been hurt even Lilly…. Now what she did was wrong, the path she went on was wrong, but she didn’t say ‘Boohoo woah was me, I lost my dad and no one is allowed to say they have it worse than me’.” I tell her.

“She kidnapped kids Kenny didn’t.”

“He doesn’t have to kidnap kids to act like a god damn prick, especially saying that he can take on a bunch of kids, I will not hesitate to shoot him if he decides to do as such.” I tell her.

“You won’t shoot him, if you do me and AJ are gone.” She says and I look at her.

“You would be no better for shooting him Vincent he’s all I have left of Lee.” She says and I look at her then to the ground and I shake my head and aim my rifle at the deer and I take the shot shooting it right in the head. I get up and walk over to it and I close my eyes a bit.

“I’ll only shoot him if he tries to take my home…. That’s not a wrong thing to do Clementine…. It’s the only home I’ve had even before the Walkers came about.” I say as I grab the deer by the antlers and she helped me place it on the makeshift cart we made for the winter hunts.

“I’ll be damned if I let someone take it by force.” I say as we walk more.

“Vincent.” She says but then stopped. She kept quiet and so did I, we didn’t talk for the rest of the trip home as I opened the gate she walked in with the deer and I closed the gate. I saw Omar come out the building and I went and grabbed the rope from Clementine.

“Go inside and get warm, Omar and I will clean the deer for tonight.” I say and she looked to me and nods just a bit before she heads inside. I watch her as she goes inside and I rub my neck and we take the deer into the back of the greenhouse where we take the food we’ve caught and we clean it. I grab my knife and a razor I was able to find, then Omar started a fire and got a few buckets of snow for cleaning.

“This is a good catch, and it’s a buck too.” He says and I nod as I shave the fur to keep it out of the meat when we cut it open.

“Yea… I’ll give Clementine the antlers, she’s been collecting skulls and stuff.” I say.

“Hmm, sounds like something Mark use to do… remember him?” Omar asked and I nodded as I chuckled.

“Yea… He was an asshole to me but…. Can’t blame him if I was an asshole back.” I say as I finish shaving the deer and Omar had a bucket of water ready and I grabbed it an poured it on the deer.

“You know that Gabe kid started asking a lot of questions about you.” He says and I stop working and I look at him.

“Questions like?”

“Well, he asked why you were sent here, and we didn’t tell him, then he asked what you were to Clementine but we didn’t say anything, we just told him to talk to you about it…. He kept real quiet after that though, guess he knew he wasn’t going to get anything from us.” He says and I nod.

“Thanks… for not telling him.” I say as I get to work on cutting the deer open. It took us a good while to clean and cut the deer up for food but we were able to do it. I grabbed some of the meet and so did Omar and we made our way back into the school, we were cold but once in we felt the warmth of the fire and I sigh a bit.

“Damn my face went numb.” I joke and Omar laughed a bit as we walk into the music room and he began to prepare lunch and dinner. I sat by the fire and I tried to get warm. I looked around to not see that Gabe kid and Clementine.

“Hey did Clementine come back here?” I asked Sophie as she sat next to louis by the Piano.

“Yea she did but Gabe wanted to talk to her.” She says and I nod as I get up a bit and I head to my office to grab some papers. It’s been a habit of mine to start writing down when we had food what it was where we got it and so on, it kept me busy. I heard some talking as I got closer to my office.

“Come on you can’t tell me you actually like it here, that guy isn’t thinking straight either.” I hear and I stop walking and hear it come from my office.

“I do like it here, and so does AJ, and that guy has a name and it’s Vincent.” I hear Clementine say.

“Clem I just want what’s best for you, is he forcing you to stay?” Gabe asked and I clench my teeth and growl lowly as I grab the door knob and open the door and looked to see Gabe and Clementine in the middle of my office and I glare at him.

“Get the fuck out of my office now.” I threaten and he looked to me a bit scared but his face changed to anger too.

“No, I will not, I’m talking to Clementine.” He says and I go up to him. I am taller than him an I look down at him.

“Get the fuck out of my office before I kick your ass.” I tell him again.

“Gabe just go.” Clementine says.

“No, he can’t tell me what to do, and he can’t tell you what to do either.” He says and then shoves me back. Which was the wrong thing to do. Am I in the wrong for what I do next? I have no idea, but right now he needed to be taught a lesson. I grab him by the collar of his shirt and shove him into the wall his feet off the ground a hit and I look him dead in the eye before I pulled my arm back and slammed my fist into his face. I was able to get a few hits in before he kicked me right in the crotch and I groan a bit as I let him go and bend down a bit in pain.

“Fucking, idiot.” I groan out as I get back up and he had his fist up to his chest as if he was trying to act like he knew hot to fight. I was about to tackle him but I was grabbed by the waist and I take the hands off me as I do finally tackle him and we fly out the doors of the office and into the hall. We started to swing fists at each other, hitting each other in the face, chest, stomach, he even kicked me a few times before we got near the steps and he tackled me as we both fell down hitting the steps along the way. We had fallen a few feet away from the steps at the last step and I hit the old table stand on the side, as I got up I was kicked in the face and I laid on my back as Gabe got on top of me. I hear the door open just as I was able to grab the sleeve of Gabe’s jacket and move his one arm away before he hit me with his other arm. I twisted his right arm a bit which caused him to shout as I quickly shove him to the side and I got up and let go of his arm. He gets up as well and everyone is looking at us as he tackled me one more time and I grab his neck in a head lock as we fall to the ground and I punch his side.

“FUCKING LET GO!” He yells.

“FUCK YOU!” I yell back and hit his side again before he grabbed my leg and twisted it a bit causing me to let go of him.

“STOP IT BOTH OF YOU!” I hear Kate yell as I punch Gabe in the face and back up a bit. I see Javie and Louis come over to us and Gabe shoved Javie away and Louis tried to grab me but I look at him and he lifts his hands up a bit. Then Gabe tackled me again and this time we slammed into the door and it opened from the force breaking the lock, we tumble out into the snow and I hit my head on the step and I groan a bit as I get up only to be kicked in the side and I saw he was going to kick again and I grab his leg pulling him down and he falls on his ass and I quickly get up and start slamming my fist into his face as he tried to block me from doing so.

“STOP IT NOW THE BOTH OF YOU!” Javie yells but we didn’t listen we just kept fighting, I wanted to beat the living hell out of him and I know he wanted to beat the hell out of me. Gabe shoved me back but I grabbed the collar of his shirt and hit him in the face again.

“STOP!” I hear and I feel someone pull me off Gabe and I fall back a bit and then get back up to go after him again.

“VINCENT STOP!” Louis yelled as I felt him grab me and I turn to shove him of me.

“BACK OFF LET ME KICK THIS PUNKS ASS!” I yelled at Louis and then I felt a head throbbing pain in the back of my head and I turn to see Gabe with a log and I felt the back of my head but didn’t see any blood and I yelled as I tackled him again as he tried to swing the log at me again but he swing to fast as it wasn’t able to hit me and I had him pinned to the ground as I grabbed the log and was about t hit him in the face with it before I was tackled off him by Tennessee and I look at him.

“Stop this Vincent, please.” He begged and I look at him and then I see Gabe get up as he was about to grab Tennessee, I moved Tenn. away from me as I got back up and Gabe punched me in the chest and then his Uncle grabbed him and Tenn. pulled me back.

“I’ll fucking bash your god damn face in.” I tell him and he glares at me.

“What the fuck happened?” Javie asked.

“He got in my face so I moved him away and he started fighting me.” Gabe says and they all look at me.

“I told that little shit that he needed to get out of my office, and he shoved me back, I don’t fucking care anymore get the fuck out of here.” I say as I glare at him then Javie.

“Wait Vincent just breath.” Tenn. says.

“No, no fuck this shit, Kenny talks about how he can take on a bunch of kids, Gabe with his shit of being a disrespectful fucking child, to people who let them in, fuck that shit they need to leave now.” I tell everyone that was in earshot.

“Vincent.” Louis says and I look at him and I shake my head.

“Get him the fuck away from me or I swear to god I will break his fucking legs.” I tell Javie as he takes Gabe away.

“FUCKING BITCH!” Gabe yelled and I was about to go after him but Louis and Mitch grabbed me and I shove them off and lift my hands up in surrender.

“Alright damn I won’t go after him.” I say as I take a breath, it took a bit and I walked to the bell tower and I heard someone walking by me and I see AJ.

“AJ go back inside.” I tell him.

“You need to talk to someone, talking is good, I do it when I’m angry.” He says and I sigh.

“What I have to say isn’t something for you to hear.” I tell him.

“I’ve heard a lot of swearing if that’s what you’re worried about.” He says and I couldn’t help but chuckle a bit and I pat his head.

“No, it’s just…. Adult things…. You’ll understand when you’re older ok?” I asked him and he looked at me and nods a bit.

“Just breath a bit, that helps when you’re angry… it helps me.” He says and I nod as I take a few breaths and I sigh once more as he grabbed my hand and he took me inside the admin building. He must have been cold so I follow him and I look at the door a bit by bending down and I look at the door frame.

“Your stunt caused the door to get busted.” I heard Kenny say and I glare at him.

“Please stop, don’t start another fight.” AJ says as he looked to Kenny and I get up and look at him.

“I’ll fix it alright? Damn.” I mumbled as I went to the supply room I grabbed the tool box and went back to the door and I looked at it and grabbed a screwdriver and unscrewed the screws as I worked on the door more I closed the door as I tried to unbend the metal portion of the lockset and I unbent it as best as I could before I set it back on the door frame. I screwed it back in and then closed the door to test it out and it worked good but I do know I will need to get a new lockset for the doors soon.

“Wouldn’t have need fixing in the first place.” He says and I glare at him.

“Back off, I want you and the others out of here by tonight, you are not welcomed here anymore.” I tell him and he looked at me. I look to see Clementine looking at us.

“Kenny stop, you’re making it worse.” She tells him.

“Ho…. You can’t be taking his side.” He says and I just look at him.

“Kenny, stop, you and Gabe made things worse on yourselves, you both need to stop, now.” She says and I look at her.

“Fine whatever.” He says and I shake my head and I grabbed the tool box and set it back in the supply room and I close my eyes a bit and I feel someone touch my shoulder and I look to see Clementine.

“You need to have Ruby look you over.” She says and I nod as I follow her to the old nurse’s office and we see Ruby grabbing some medication and she looked to us.

“Good you’re here, now let me check your damn head.” She says as she hit my arm and I rubbed it.

“Damn, why?” I asked and she looked at me and glared.

“Seriously?” she asked and I look down as she looked at my head.

“Well there isn’t any bleeding that’s good, unless it’s internal then well I can’t help you there.” She says and I nod gently and I look at Clementine who looks at me.

“Clementine, I’m sorry but your friends need to leave.” I hear and look to see Mitch.

“I… I’m not going to talk about this, you guy’s do what you need to do.” She says.

“Clementine, we don’t mean to act like a bunch of bad guys but if that Gabe kid fought Vincent over something as petty as that, then we can’t have that here….” Aasim says and the others nod.

“I know, I know, I’m not saying what he did was ok.” She says.

“I’m to blame too.” I say as I get up.

“Look, they can stay, until the winter passes, once the snow storm stops then they can go…. It wouldn’t be great to let them go out in the freezing cold… I know none of us would want that to happen to either of us.” I say and they all look at me.

“No, Vincent they have to go now, he could have killed you, do you know how hard you hit your head?” Louis asked.

“Yes, I’m the one who felt it, but it doesn’t matter, he can work it off as a punishment, remember when we all got in trouble for sneaking out one night, and we had to shovel the snow and other hard work? He can do the same.” I tell them.

“Hmm we could do that.” Omar says and they all agree.

“Alright, now all of you get, Vincent you need to rest.” Ruby says.

“Hey I’m fine, I just need to go to my office, if I have to, I’ll sleep in there with Rosie.” I tell her and she sighs as I head out with Clementine.

“You want to tell them what’s going on?” I asked and she nods and I follow her. I just want to make sure nothing happens.

“I didn’t mean to do it Uncle Javie, I swear.” I hear Gabe say.

“Gabe you need to understand there are consequences to your actions, you hurt him just because he told you to get out of HIS room, how stupid are you?” Javie says and I walk in with clementine.

“You need to apologize to him right now.” Mariana says and she points over to me and they all look at me. I look at Clementine a bit and she walks up to them.

“You guy’s have to leave when the winter is over.” She tells them.

“Clem tell them I’m sorry.” Gabe says.

“No, she isn’t going to tell us nothing, we decided that, you guys can stay till winter passes, but you on the other hand, you need to work your ass off for the stunt you pulled.” I tell Gabe as he looked at me.

“I..” he tried to say.

“No, you ain’t getting out of this, we all did something bad and we got punished for it, the same is gonna happen to you, anyone got an issue with it speak up now.” I say but no one talks and I nod.

“You can start buy getting the wood from the greenhouse with Mitch.” I say as I head up to my office and I go and sit at the desk. I look at the desk drawer and I open it to see a bottle of whiskey looking at me. I pick it up and I think for a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SURE HOPE YOU DIDN’T SKIM OVER THIS STORY!


	11. Goodbye and Hello

(Vincent’s Pov)

I looked at the bottle of whiskey for a while now, should I have a drink or should I just head to bed? I look to see Rosie taking up the bed a bit and I get up and I sit on the bed with her and I rub her head a bit. She wakes up from my touch and I look at her.

“You’re a good girl.” I tell her and she wags her tail a bit and I nod as I rub her head more.

“Such a good dog.” I chuckle as she licks my cheek a bit and I sigh as she lays her head on her paws a bit. I look at the whiskey bottle in my hand and I open the cap and I take a drink of it. There was really nothing else I could do but sit back and look through the window and look at the stars. I start to think a bit as I take another drink and I hear my door open and I look to see Clementine looking at me.

“Vincent.” She says as I see her look at the whiskey bottle in my hand and I hand it out to her offering her a drink. She comes in completely and locks the door and sits next to me as she takes the drink from my hand and takes a swig of it.

“There you go, finally taking the edge off like me.” I tell her and she looked at me and hands the bottle back. I take another drink and I look at the window and I slowly pet Rosies head again.

“That fight… I’m sorry.” She says.

“Ain’t nothing to be sorry about, that boy needs to say sorry not you, besides, you can apologize to me in other ways.” I say with a smirk and she shoves me away and I chuckle a bit at this.

“Aww come on you know I was just joking.” I tell her and she looked to me a bit and I smile as she kissed my cheek and I hold her hand with the one I was petting Rosie with. I kiss Clementine on the lips and I she kissed me back. I set the bottle down as I cup her cheek gently and she looked to me as we parted.

“Look I didn’t mean to start a fight, I want you to understand that… he isn’t going to get away with a lot of things, besides I want to keep you and AJ safe.” I tell her and she nods as I grabbed the bottle again and I took another swig.

“Hmm best let not Kenny see us like this hu?” She says and I chuckle as I pull her to me and Rosie jumps off the bed and Clementine lays on top of me.

“No we shouldn’t but frankly I don’t give a damn, besides he shouldn’t be snooping in peoples rooms unless he wants trouble, and trust me I’m not to keen on letting him snooping around here.” I say and she nods as she sits up a bit with her elbows on my chest as she looks to me. I smile up at her and I grab the drink and she grabbed it from me and takes a drink.

“Sometimes it’s good to relax.” She says and I chuckle a bit.

“Hey we gotta be good parents for AJ we can’t be getting wasted.” I say as I grabbed the bottle from her and she looked to me.

“I won’t be getting drunk because I’m all good, you on the other hand.” She says as I take another drink and then she takes the bottle from me again and I sigh.

“You know when I was younger I always thought I would be one shitty parent, I mean honest to god I’m not being a good role model right now by drinking and trying to get laid again in an world full of dead people walking around.” I say as I look at her.

“Didn’t want to be a parent, can’t be a parent.” I mumbled a bit as I looked to her more.

“You can though.” I mumbled as I grabbed the bottle again and I take a drink.

“I would never be a good mom… you guys showed me I can’t raise AJ on my own…. Look at what happened to Marlon.” She says.

“No this is different, we live in a world were we can’t trust living people anymore, you be kind to them and they stab you in the back, you give them a home and they do it again, you can’t stay in once place because people will take it from you.” I say and I drink more and more. I begin to feel a bit tipsy as I look around a bit then back at her and I cup her cheek again.

“You have been through a lot…. This world is fucked, we… we’re just … we’re just delaying our deaths… maybe we should have died when all this began to happen… our parent’s left us, all of us, the adults didn’t care, they wanted us dead.” I say.

“Stop it Vincent.” She says.

“No, it’s true… I should have died a long time ago… my parent’s don’t care… if they’re still alive they sure as hell don’t give a damn about me now then they ever did.” I say and I get up a bit and look around a bit as I take another drink.

“AJ has no clue what the world was like and that should be a good thing, but he… he never got to be a kid you know.” I say.

“Hey he’s acting like a kid now, that’s all cause of you guys, and Tenn is teaching him to draw more and Louis is showing him how to play the piano, he use to hate loud noises but now he’s getting use to it all.” She says and I nod a bit as I drink more.

“I just want to know one thing.” I say as I walk up to her a bit and she stands up and looks at me.

“And what is that?” She asked.

“Why be with someone like me?” I asked as I place the bottle of Whiskey on the desk and I pull her to me a bit and we dance without any music, just swaying a bit.

“Is it cause I can’t get you…. You know? Well as far as I know I can’t.” I asked and she looked to me with a blush.

“No.” She says.

“Is it cause I’m something new?” I asked as I dipped her a bit and she giggled at this action and I chuckle as I lift her up just a bit and she let go of my hand and cupped my cheek a bit and I smile at her.

“No… you are a kind young man, you can talk to me about a lot of things… not saying I can’t talk to Ruby about it but, it’s easier for me to talk to you.” She says and I nod a bit as I kiss her cheek gently.

“You make AJ laugh, you play with him, teach him new things, things that I didn’t even know about.” She says and I chuckle.

“You remind me that not everyone in this world can be bad…. You kinda remind me of Lee too… how you want to help others but if it’s someone important you would do anything to help them… even if you have to fight someone.” She says and I nod as I kiss her. She kissed me back and I hear a knock on the door and I groan quietly.

“You should open that.” She says and I shake my head.

“No.” I tell her quietly and we laugh a bit at this and I hear a knock again.

“GO AWAY!” I yelled to the door and I look at her.

“Excuse you?” I hear Kenny say and I look at Clementine and I glare at the door.

“I said go away.” I say again and I kiss Clementine’s neck a bit. She swats me in the arm and I look at her and she looked to the door and I sigh a bit as I stand her up a bit and I let her go as I open the door as best as I could. I come face to face with Kenny and he looks to me.

“What?” I asked.

“Is that Alcohol I smell?” He asked and I chuckle.

“Oooh country man can smell alcohol, amazing…not.” I joke and I look to Clementine.

“What do you need Kenny?” She asked kindly and I roll my eyes a bit at this.

“You shouldn’t be in here with a… drunk kid Clementine.” He says and I glare at him.

“I can handle him Kenny, now what do you need?” She asked.

“I want to know why the hell you are in here while he’s drinking, he could hurt you.” He says and I glare at him.

“Hey, I ain’t never laid a finger on her… well unless she wanted me too.” I joke and I look at him and he glares at me.

“What?” He asked and I look at him.

“Nothing Kenny.” She says.

“Yea nothing.” I tell him and he looks at both of us. I look back at him and he seems to finally realize what I meant as his face turns red with anger.

“I’ll kill you.” He says as he comes in and I get up to him face to face.

“Listen here, I give no fucks of who you are but you can back the fuck up.” I tell him.

“I ain’t no weak little boy so watch yourself, I aught a kill you right here and right now.” He says and I chuckle.

“For what? Showing Clementine a good time? Well I’ve already shown her plenty.” I say and he grabbed my shirt and I laughed as Clementine tried to pull him off me as he slammed me into the wall and I laughed more. Rosie starts to bark and is about to bite him but Clementine holds her back and I chuckle a him.

“You think your old ass can tell her what she can do? She’s old enough to make her own choices you old fucker, and you can’t say shit.” I say and he has his arm on my neck trying to put pressure on it. I saw Clementine let go of Rosie who kept barking knowing not to bite just yet.

“STOP IT KENNY, SOMEONE HELP!” Clementine yelled as she tried to pull him off but I kept looking at him before I lifted my leg up a bit and kicked him and he let go and I slid down a bit to my feet. I look at him a bit and Clementine does too as he looked to us.

“You… you forced her.” He says. And I look at him.

“I didn’t force her to do anything.” I tell him.

“You’re a god damn liar, kids like you are never good, you came to this fucking school for a reason, fucking messed up in the head.” He says and I look to him and I take a deep breath.

“Calm down the both of you.” Clementine says and I look at her then him.

“Kenny you have no idea on why he’s here, so don’t say anything, please.” She says and he glares at me.

“He’s a god damn troubled youth, he must have done some pretty bad shit to get sent here, maybe he forced himself on another girl.” He says and I say nothing. I clench my hands into fists as I look at him.

“He didn’t force me to do anything now stop this right now Kenny.” She says and I look at her and then to him. I kept quiet as he looked at her and then people came running in. Rosie now growling at Kenny and watching him like a hawk.

“The hell is going on here?” Aasim asked and I look at Kenny.

“Nothing…just a bit of a misunderstanding is all.” I say and I grab my bottle of whiskey and I head out the door with Rosie by my side and Clementine following behind me. I get to my room and I open the door and I let them both in. I look to Clementine as she doesn’t walk in and she looked at me.

“Vincent.” She says and looks at my neck.

“Nothing to worry about… trust me, now… want to come in?” I asked as I tilted my head to my room and she looked at me.

“Not right now…. I’ll have a talk with Kenny and then bring you some food.” She says and I nod a bit as I go in my room and Rosie follows me in the room. I look at Clementine as she watched me and I shake my head and I pull her into the room with me and I kiss her gently.

“I know what I’m doing, you don’t need to worry about anything.” I tell her and she looked at me.

“I just hope this winter ends soon, I don’t think I can handle any more fights.” She says and I watch her as she tried to pull away from me but I stopped her.

“Don’t go just yet.” I tell her and she looks at me.

“Ok.” She says and I nod as I let her go gently but I place my head by her neck and she holds me now.

“You’re so beautiful.” I tell her.

“Pfft, really?” She asked and I nod.

“Yep.” I tell her and she giggled a bit.

“Dirt and gut covered?” She asked and I chuckle more.

“The gut covered is a challenge, but I don’t mind the dirt.” I tell her and she looked to me and I look at her.

“I would enjoy to have you lay with me tonight…. Not touching just some good old fashion sleep hu?” I asked.

“In a bit, I still have to talk to Kenny and the stunt he pulled and you didn’t make it any better…. You seem to be getting into a lot of fights tonight.” She says.

“What can I say? Danger loves to come to me at any given moment…. Might be good for the next three months give or take.” I tell her and she looked at me and I kiss her.

“I’ll let you go talk to the old man, I’m going to have a few drinks with Rosie here and then pass out on this lovely soft bed made of concrete.” I tell her and she rolled her eyes a bit and I smiled as I opened my arms out.

“Or you could just drop the whole, talk to Kenny and just lay with us and have a few more swigs of this fine drink with me?” I asked her and she shakes her head at me a bit and I look at her.

“I’ll go talk with Kenny, you just get some sleep.” She says.

“And off to the old bed I go, to sleep some dreams that will keep me cold.” I mumbled as she took me to my bed and I sat on it.

“I will come back to keep you warm.” She says.

“Ooooh keep me warm eh?” I asked.

“Mind out of the gutter.” She says.

“Can’t keep it out if you keep talking like that.” I say and she looks at me and I chuckle as she slaps my arm a bit.

“Just joking.” I say and she nods as I look at her as we sit on my bed. I see some of her hair lose from her cap and I take it off and place the piece of hair behind her ear and she looks at me. I kiss her neck a bit and she places a hand on my shoulder and I move away just a bit.

“I’ll be back.” She says and I nod as she gets up and leaves. I finish up the rest of the whiskey and I look to Rosie who looked at me and I pat the bed for her and she jumps on and lays at the foot of my bed. I nod as I lay back on my bed and look at the top bunk for a bit before I close my eyes. I have no idea on how long I was asleep for but I heard my door open up and I sit up fast in time just to see AJ.

“AJ?” I asked and looked at him more.

“Sorry I heard some yelling so.” He says and I look at him and I get up.

“Stay in here with Rosie.” I say as I hear more yelling and he nods a bit and I walk out. I head to the admin building and I see Gabe yelling at Ruby.

“FUCK YOU ALL!” He yelled.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” I yelled and everyone looked at me.

“You know what, you are on thin fucking Ice with me Gabe.” I say as I look at all of them.

“You shut your damn mouth.” Kenny says.

“NO YOU, YOU WOKE AJ UP AND I BET YOU WOKE THE OTHER KIDS UP TOO SO FUCK YOU!” I yell at everyone and I look to see Clementine on the ground with blood on her lip. I swear to god I saw nothing but red.

“Who… who the fuck hurt her?” I asked and looked around.

“ANSWER ME RIGHT FUCKING NOW!” I demeaned pissed off.

“It was Gabe.” Javie says and I look at him.

“OUT!” I yelled and pointed to the door.

“ALL OF YOU GET THE FUCK OUT!” I yell at them and everyone looks at me. I am seething at this bullshit that is happening.

“I didn’t give a flying fuck if you hurt me, but you hurt her… fuck out of here now, I don’t care if you freeze to death.” I tell them.

“Vincent stop.” Clementine says and I look at her.

“Stop? Stop? Are you fucking joking? He hurt you.” I tell her and she looked at me and I looked at the others.

“Get your stuff now, I will take you all away from here, Louis you will follow me, grab your stuff now.” I tell them and they do as told and I look at Mariana.

“You can stay here or go, it’s your choice.” I tell her and she looked to me and she went to grab her bag and I sigh a bit as I go and grab my jacket. I look to Kenny who doesn’t move.

“Old man you better grab your stuff now or so help me god I will blast your brains to the wall.” I tell him.

“Vincent.” Louis says.

“NO! We have been nothing but kind to them and they want to start shit now, fuck that.” I tell them.

“You slept with Clementine, how do you think I feel about that, I’m like her father.” He says.

“You can say that all you want, but right now, that has nothing to do with Gabe hitting her…. Why did he hit her?” I asked and they looked at me.

“Why did Gabe hit Clementine? Does anyone know?” I asked.

“Clementine why did he hit you?” I asked.

“It’s nothing to worry about he was sorry.” She says and I look at her then him.

“I am.” He says.

“Sorry don’t cut it….” I tell him and we all just stand in silence for a bit and I take a breath.

“Vincent.” Louis says and I look at him.

“What?” I asked him.

“Just calm down.” He says.

“Calm down? Calm down? You’re gonna tell me to calm down after Gabe hit Clementine?” I asked him as if he was crazy.

“He did wrong but… you can’t let them freeze.” He says.

“But you wanted to send Clementine and AJ out in the woods to be….. sorry.” I mumbled as I look to Clementine and I helped her up and I grabbed her hat from the ground.

“…. Tonight is the last night you all stay, you will leave in the morning and I will take you to the edge.” I tell them and I take Clementine back to my room where AJ is sitting on the bed and he looks at us.

“What happened I heard more yelling.” AJ asked and I sat Clementine on my bed and I got a good look at her and I saw she had a busted lip and her cheek was a bit red and I clenched the bed a bit at this.

“Don’t.” She says.

“Clementine what happened?” AJ asked and I look at him.

“Nothing you need to worry about.” I tell him.

“But.” He tried to say and I look at him.

“Nothing you need to worry about ok? I have it taken care of.” I tell him again and I look at Clementine again as she looked at me.

”Clem.” AJ asked and I look at her and stroke her cheek a bit. She flinched away and I move my hand away and sigh.

“I’ll get a cold rag.” I say and she nods as I grab a rag from my dresser drawer and I head outside and put some snow in it and I head back to the room and I open the door. I see AJ laying in Clementines lap as she rubs his back gently and I watch her.

“And you said you aren’t a good parent.” I whisper as I close the door and I she looks up at me.

“When he was little and scared I would always do this to help him sleep.” She says quietly and I come up to her and I place the cold rag on her cheek gently and she hissed a bit from the pain and I look at her as she relaxed just a bit.

“What was your biggest fear when you were a kid?” She asked and I look at her a bit and think.

“When I was a kid… I use to be afraid of dolls… and not just any dolls but Barbie dolls.” I say and she looks at me and I chuckle.

“It’s ok to laugh it was silly.” I say and she kept herself from laughing and I smile.

“Why?” She asked.

“There was a movie I watched as a kid called Small Soldiers, and they were these small toys that were alive I guess, well they made these Barbie dolls new soldiers and they put small sharp items on them and everything, now imagine a Barbie doll army with knives as hands, that’s scary as hell.” I say and chuckle a bit.

“Plus movies like Chucky, or even puppets freaked me out as a kid, especially from the dark crystal, damn the puppets freaked me out.” I tell her and she looked at me confused and I rubbed my neck.

“They’re very old movies I use to watch with my grandfather.” I say and she looked at me and I looked down.

“He use to protect me from my bad dreams…. Any time I was scared him and my grandma would let me sleep in their bed and they would tell me ‘it’s just a dream our little flower.’…. it always made me feel better.” I say as I look at her.

“You miss them a lot hu?” She asked and I nodded.

“Who doesn’t miss their grandparents?” I asked and she looked to me.

“I only knew my grandma, but she passed away when I was about six.” She says and I nod sadly.

“I am so sorry.” I tell her and she nods.

“It’s ok, at least she doesn’t have to deal with any of this.” She says and I nod as I move the rag from her face and look at her cheek.

“Swollen?” She asked and I nod a bit.

“Yea… don’t worry it’ll go down soon.” I tell her and she sighs a bit and then I look to AJ as I help pick him up gently and I go lay him on the other bed and I cover him up gently. Once I was done I went over to her and I sat next to her as she lays down. I look at her and I lay next to her and I cover her up and she cuddles up to me.

“I love you.” She says and I nod as I watch her sleep. I stroke her head a bit and kept an eye on the door. The morning comes around and I slowly get up from the bed and I cover Clementine up more as she cuddles into the bed. I go and grab my rifle as I head to the admin building and I look to see Kenny and the others waiting. I look to not see Louis and I sigh as I go over to them and I look at them.

“Let’s get going.” I say as they all walk ahead of me and I watch as Kenny is the last person to leave besides me. I close the gate and follow them.

“You know Clementine doesn’t like this.” Kenny says and I just look at him.

“You think I don’t know that.” I tell him as we walk more.

“So why are you making her upset.” He states more than asked and I look at his back.

“I…. just drop it.” I tell him and he looks at me.

“You know she would be a lot happier with us.” He says.

“No, she wouldn’t, her and AJ need a stable place to stay.”

“And you think your place is stable? Don’t make me laugh.” He says and I look at him.

“You don’t have a home… she’s tired of the traveling.” I say.

“She will never be tired of the traveling, trust me when the time comes her and AJ will leave, and you wont be going with her, you’re nothing to her.” He says and I look down.

“I don’t need to hear this from you.” I tell him and we keep walking till we get to the edge of the woods. The others keep walking and Kenny stops and looks at me and I look back at him.

“You’re a real shit leader you know that?” He says and I look to him.

“Doing better than our old one.” I tell him and he looked to me more.

“Trust me Clementine will see how bad your place really is and she’ll leave, and when she does, she’ll find my group and she’ll be better off, her and AJ.” He says and I look at him.

“That’s what you think, if it happens it happens, you think I care about people leaving me? Honest to god we had adults leave us to die…. Our own parents left us to die… we literally have nothing to lose…. I have nothing to lose.” I say and he walks off and I watch them. After a good twenty minutes I start to walk back to the school, there I see Ruby heading to the greenhouse and Louis coming out the dorm rooms.

“Did you take them already?” He asked and I nod as I head inside. I look at the stairs to see Clementine and AJ coming down and I head past them and to my office. I lock the door and I begin to think.

_-Past Before The Dead Walked-_

_I was looking at my father as he drank his fourth can of beer. I never like the smell of it but I did get use to it. He threw his semi-empty can to the side near me. Almost hitting me. I flinch a bit and I back away from that spot._

_“Fucking clean it up, you useless brat…. Nay thing you’re good for.” He says and I nod a bit as I go and grab the can to throw it away. I head to the kitchen and I grab the mop and I heard my dad get up from his recliner as I began to fill the bucket with water._

_“Use a damn rag, fucking lazy kid.” He says and yanks the mop from me and lifts it to the side about to hit me with it._

_-Present Time-_

I slowly look up from my desk. Why did I remember that? There was no need for that, my father is gone, my mother is gone, no one in my family is here to hurt me. Or to help me. I rub my face gently as I look to the side a bit and I sigh as I look at the maps. I hear a knock on the door.

“Vincent, you ok?” I hear and I go up to the door and see Ruby.

“Yea I’m good, what about you?” I asked.

“Fine…. You sure you’re ok?” She asked and I nodded.

“Yea I’m sure, is everything ok?” I asked.

“Yea things are fine, AJ just wanted to know if you could teach him how to build a snowman.” She says and I look to the side to see AJ ready to go out in the snow and I chuckle a bit as I nod to him.

“Alright… um… can you ask, Omar if we need to get any more wood for the fire.” I asked her and she nods as I come out the office and I walk with AJ.

“And Clementine told me there’s this thing called snow angels and she was going to show me how to make one.” He says excited and I nod a bit as I listen to him. We get outside and I look around.

“Alright so to build a snowman you gotta make sure the snow can stick, if it sticks we can start building.” I explained as I got some snow and made it into a ball with my hands and it keeps its form and I show him. He then grabbed some snow and did the same. I smile as he gets excited and I chuckle as I begin to help him start the base of the snowman. It took us a while but we made the base of the snowman and it was huge.

“Alright, so we’re gonna add another base to the snowman about medium sized ok?” I asked and he nods as he gets to work and I help him.

“Clementine told me that when she was little she made an… igloo? With her dad, and a fort for snowball fights.” He says and I look to him.

“Yea? I’m guessing you wanna make those after the snowman hu?” I asked and he nodded and I chuckled as I nod as well. We finished making the second part of the snowman and I roll it up the side of the other ball of snow till it’s centered.

“Now what?” He asked.

“Well we make one more ball but smaller and place that on the top too.” I explained and he nods as we work on the final ball.

“Did you do this with your dad?” He asked and I stopped a bit and looked at the snow.

“No… my dad always said it was stupid and to cold out….. I didn’t have a good relationship with my father.” I say as I work more on helping AJ.

“What about your mom?” He asked.

“She was busy with work… I thought I told you this already?” I asked and he looks to me.

“I forgot.” He says and I smile and pat his head.

“It’s fine.” I say and we finish up his snowman.

“So what is his name?” I asked and he looked to me.

“Hmm…. Alvin three.” He says and I laugh a bit and pat his head.

“Alvin three it is.” I say and pat his back as we head inside. Months pass after the group had left, and I haven’t slept well in these past months. The weather was getting a bit warmer now so we didn’t have to have our heavy coats anymore. But long sleeved shirts were ok.

“Hey Vincent.” I heard and I looked over to Clementine as she came over to Louis and I as we cleaned some of the rabbits we caught.

“Hey.” I say quietly to her and she hands me a knife and I nod as she helped us clean the rabbits up.

“So, the first time I catch a rabbit, Aasim and I had been looking for them, and we get one in the trap, only problem, a walker got it before we could.” Louis says and I chuckle.

“So what do I do?” He asked Clementine and I wash the rabbit meat.

“You kick the walkers ass?” She asked.

“No, I did nothing, that damn thing was bloated, for all I know it could have thrown up on me, guts are hard enough to wash out.” Louis says and we both chuckle at this.

“Yea we wouldn’t want that smell.” I say and Clementine looked at me.

“We still haven’t found an eyepatch for you.” She says as she moves the hair away from my busted eye and I cover it back up. I took the bandages off so it could air out a bit.

“It’s fine, not like it would do any different.” I tell her and she looked at me.

“You both need a hair cut.” Louis says and I cross my arms.

“Boy, you’re right about me, but Clem here doesn’t need a haircut.” I say and she looks at me.

“Well a trim wouldn’t hurt, besides, AJ needs a cut too, he hasn’t let me touch his hair in a while.” She says and I look to him.

“Alright, I’ll go find some scissors.” Louis says as he runs away and I roll my good eye.

“You made his day I suppose.” I say as I finish the rabbits and I look to Clem to see her looking around and then she kisses me and I kiss her back.

“Oh?” I ask and I smirk as I set the rabbit down and I kiss her gently.

“Just wanted to do that.” She says and I watch her as she goes to AJ and I rub my face a bit as I watch her more. It wasn’t long till I finished the rabbits and I handed them to Omar, who began to cook them over the fire and not in a soup. I watched as Ruby got the vegetables ready and I went over to check on Tenn and Willy.

“And Mitch. Said that he would help me make it.” Willy says and I look at the bomb he was working on.

“Sure do hope you aren’t setting that off anytime soon.” I say and he looks at me.

“N-No Vincent.” He says and I smile.

“Mind trying on making fireworks?” I asked and he nods.

“Something new to work on. Ok yea.” He says and I nod as I look around and I see Louis come back with some scissors as he waves me over and I sigh as I go over to him.

“Trust me I’m not going to cut your ear like last time.” He says.

“Oh that makes me feel so much better.” I joke and he laughed as he sat me in the chair and I sighed as I stood up tall and he began cutting away.

“So, I noticed you haven’t been sleeping well.” He says to me and I lift my hand up and do a so-so hand gesture.

“You could say that.” I tell him.

“Any reason as to why?” He asked.

“No, I have no clue, nerves probably.” I says.

“Any bad dreams?” He asked and I nod just a bit.

“What about?” He asked.

“Stuff from the past, my dad, grandma, the adults leaving us and such.” I say as he finished my hair and I touch it to feel how short it was, it was a bit longer than an old army cut so it will have to do.

“Ah right.” He says and I look at him.

“You haven’t been sleeping either, I hear you on the piano a lot.” I say as I stand up and look at him.

“Been working on a new piece.” He says and I nod.

“Alright, time for Clementine to get a Louis Cut.” He announced and she looked to him as she came over with AJ who watched as Clementine sat down and watched as Louis began working on her hair.

“Can Vincent cut mine?” He asked.

“Oh no that’s not a good idea.” I tell him and he looked at me.

“Why not?” He asked.

“He’s afraid to mess it up.” Louis says and I nod.

“I’m not good at cutting hair so.” I tell him and he nods a bit.

“Ok.” He says and I rub his back a bit. After Lois finishes with Clementines hair we set AJ in a chair and Louis starts to cut it.

“Hey when do you think we can go fishing again?” AJ asked and I thought for a bit.

“Hmm, I’d say another month give or take it’s still a bit cold out and the lake is still a bit frozen in certain areas.” I tell him and he was about to nod but stopped as Louis grabbed his head.

“Woah almost got your ear bud.” He says and I chuckle. I finished up what needed to be done and I I hear Willy and Mitch as they run up to us and I stand up.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“T-Two people, adults, wondering the school.” Mitch says and I look t Clementine as we both nod and I grab my rifle and I watched as Louis and Ruby got the kids inside and I head to the gate and look to the sides a bit. I don’t see anyone but I open the gates a bit and Clementine along with Mitch and Aasim follow us as we look around the walls.

“They were just here I swear.” Mitch says and I nod as we get to the back of the school walls and I see no one.

“I don’t blame you, could have been some walkers.” I say and then I hear a twig snap and I aim my rifle into the wood just as Clementine does the same.

“Show yourself.” Aasim called out and no one comes out.

“We know you’re out there.” I say and then two people emerge from the woods.

“What the Fuck?” I asked out loud as I lowered my rifle.


	12. An Answer To Your Question

(Vincent’s Pov)

I looked to the two people as they aim their guns at us, I lift my rifle back up a bit at them and they look at me.  
  


“Violet?” The man says and I glare at him.

“Who are you and how do you know Vincent?” Clementine asked as she aimed her pistol at the two.

“Her name is Violet, and that’s my daughter.” The man says and I glare at him more and look to my mother. She had gotten a bit smaller but that had to be from the lack of food.

“Vincent what do we do?” Mitch asked and I lowered my rifle and my mom lowers her weapon as well. My father hesitating a bit but he lowers his gun but not by much, only enough to not be aimed at us.

“What do you think we should do?” I asked all of them as I looked to my parents.

“Where are you two headed?” Clementine asked.

“To a group called Delta, or the New Frontier group we heard about.” My dad says and I look at him.

“Those groups are bad news, and Delta isn’t around here.” Aasim says and I nod.

“Fucking great and how would you know?” My father asked pissed.

“Because we blew up their damn ship, they were a bunch of child kidnappers and Murders.” Mitch says to my father pissed off.

“Liar.” My dad says.

“Well it’s true, they even hurt Vincent, you haven’t even looked at your own sons face.” Clementine says to them and I looked down at the ground.

“Vincent?” I hear my mother say and I look at her and she looks me in the eye. She looked sadden by the fact that I had an injury.

“How?” She asked me.

“Let’s all head inside the school where it’s safe…. Walkers you know.” I mumbled as I began to head to the school and the others followed. We all went in but I kept a close eye on my parents, as did the others as they also kept a close eye on them too.

“Vincent?” My mother asked and I look at her as she looks at my damaged eye. I move back just a bit and look away from her.

“Um… Delta group uh… kidnapped me and um… boat exploded when they kept me locked up in a cell and didn’t let me out…. It uh…. It wasn’t cause directly from them but they didn’t try to prevent it.” I explained to her and AJ ran up to me and grabbed my leg and I chuckled as I picked him up.

“What’s up little dude?” I asked him.

“Omar finished the rabbits and he let me have a piece and it tastes really good.” He says and I chuckle and look to my mother.

“AJ this is um… my mother, mom this is AJ.” I tell her and he waves a bit to her. I set him down and he runs over to Clementine who was over by Aasim as they watched my father who was looking at them as well.

“He’s such a nice boy, who’s kid is he?” She asked me and I decided to play a little joke as I see Clementine looking at me.

“Well that’s your new adoptive grandson.” I say and she looked to me shocked and I laugh.

“I joke, um no his parents passed away a long time ago, it’s not really my story to tell.” I explain and my mom nods. After a while I take her over to the table, her and my father sit next to me as the others sit across from us. That would be Clementine, AJ, Louis, and Aasim. AJ was eating a bit of his food and would smile at Clementine.

“Do you not say grace before eating?” My dad asked.

“You can but we don’t.” I mumbled as I ate some of the rabbit.

“Still going against God.” He says.

“Pardon me but your God has made hell on earth and caused the dead to come back to kill us, drop the religious bullshit and pray to yourself and do not force us to do what you want, adults here aren’t to welcoming.” Aasim says an I look at him a bit. My father kept his mouth shut and I just ate my food and drank some water.

“So who’s kid hu?” He asked as he looked to AJ.

“Does it matter?” My mother asked.

“Yes, bunch of kids having kids isn’t wise… bet he belongs to you two.” My dad says as he points to Louis and Clementine and I look to Louis as we both laugh and so do the others. After a few minutes we finally calmed down and I look at Clementine.

“AJ is part of my group.” She says.

“You make it sound like you haven’t been here for years.” My father says.

“She’s new to this group, she isn’t from here.” I tell him.

“Oh so where is your father or uh group?” My father asked and I glare at him.

“Just been AJ and I for the past five years, until now.” She says and I smile at her a bit.

“Five years on your own? Hah nice joke.” My father says and I shake my head a bit and I eat my food again.

“It’s not a joke.” Clementine says a bit pissed and I rubbed my neck.

“Yea, Clementine has been taking care of me since I was a baby.” AJ says and I look to my father.

“Is it that hard to believe?” I asked.

“Ain’t no kids around the woods.” He said.

“That’s cause we had a car…. Till the crash.” AJ says and my mother looked to him a bit worried. She was still motherly.

“How’d that happens?” She asked.

“We found an old train station and there was this grenade and boom, and that caused the walkers to come out so we hurried to the car and bad things happened.” AJ explained.

“So how did you end up here?” My dad asked a bit pissed, bet he thinks AJ is making it all up.

“Vincent.” He says simply and I smile at him a bit.

“What did Violet do?” My father asked.

“I uh… it was Me, Louis, and Marlon, we uh…. We heard something and I just ran to it.” I say as I look to my father.

“So um yea…” I say and look at the table a bit.

“So where are the teachers?” My mother asked and we all looked to her and I rubbed my neck.

“They ran off when things started to get bad…. Only adult that stayed was Mrs. Martin and… she passed away a few years ago.” Ruby says and we all look down.

“They left you all here? Alone?” She asked and I nodded as I stood up from the bench.

“We might have been bad kids but we didn’t deserve to be left behind by the people who were supposed to take care of us…. And none of our parents came either, which pissed off a bunch of the little ones.” I say pissed.

“Lot of kids died.” I say.

“Thirty-four…. Or thirty-eight now with Marlon, Brody, Minnie and Sophie gone.” Omar says and I nod a bit.

“Oh god.” I hear my mom say and I sigh.

“You two can stay until tomorrow, than y’all can head on to wherever.” I tell them.

“Don’t you want to come with us?” My mother asked and I look at her.

“No, this is my home so no thank you.” I tell her.

“You’ll end up dying here.” My dad says.

“Then I’d like to be with my family when I go.” I tell him.

“What family? These people aren’t your family.” He says and I glare at him.

“Who are you to say that?” I hear and look to Clementine as she glares at my father.

“Who are you to say who is and isn’t his family, because you sure as hell aren’t his family, you didn’t come for him, you didn’t do anything to comeback for him.” She says and I see my father glaring at her.

“And who the fuck are you to say who her family is.” He says pissed and I see his hand move to his side and I quickly grabbed his arm as he looked at me. He looks at me and we glare at each other.

“You fucking touch her or harm her you will fucking regret seeing me.” I say as I take his gun off his side.

“All your guns now.” I demand and my mom hands her weapons to Aasim and I glare at my father as he shoves his rifle to Louis as he continues to glare at me.

“We just kicked a group out not to long ago, I won’t hesitate to do the same to you.” I tell him.

“Why the fuck are you defending her hu?” He asked.

“Cause she my girlfriend you fucking prick and it doesn’t fucking matter I would still do the same thing if you pointed the gun at anyone here, grow the fuck up.” I tell him and he takes his arm back and I glare at him.

“John stop this now, they’re letting us stay here be glad we know our son is alive.”

“DAUGHTER THAT IS OUR DAUGHTER WE NEVER HAD A GOD DAMN SON!” He yelled and I just watch him.

“They’re still letting us stay just stop this right now, can’t we have one day where you two aren’t at each other’s throats?” She asked my dad and I look to the others as they look away. I look to Clementine as she gets up from her spot and AJ follows her as she comes up to me and I look down at her.

“Go to bed you two.” I mumbled.

“It’s my turn to keep watch remember.” She says.

“After you take the kids to bed? I need to speak to my parents alone.” I say quietly and watch as the others go clean up. I look to my parents then to Clementine and she cups my cheek gently and kisses my cheek. I smile a bit and she looks to me.

“Call me if you need help, just yell.” She says.

“I’ll holler if I need you.” I say and she nods as she goes and takes the kids to bed. I look at my parents as Louis takes their guns and heads to his room to go keep the weapons away from them. I rub my neck as I look at my parents a bit.

“You has no right to do that to us.” My father says.

“Do what?”

“Take our weapons.” He says pissed.

“You were about to pull out your gun on a fucking child, you are in our home, you follow our rules, you’d be doing the same god damn thing in any other group.” I tell him and he glares at me more.

“We are your parents and you listen to us.” He tells me.

“I don’t have to, for one thing I’m an adult, and if I’d listen to any parent right now it’d be mom, not you. Fuck you can’t even respect me in front of my own group.” I say.

“You act like you’re in charge or something, last time I checked you were a fucking coward.” He says as he crossed his arms and looked at me.

“Clementine and I take responsibility of leadership but we still ask the others what they’d want unless it’s something that needs to be dealt with quickly and we don’t have time to vote…. we’ve always done votes here, we all help each other out… shit ever since Clem helped me things are a hell of a lot better.” I say to him.

“John, lets just get along for tonight please.” My mother says.

“I did try to get along Marie, but this thing doesn’t want to.” He says and I just look at him.

“I don’t care if you rot in hell for what you’ve done to yourself but I will not be disrespected by the likes of you.” He says to me and I look away and I see a few walkers at the gate trying to get in. It wasn’t long till I took them to their temporary room and I take a seat by the door for a bit. I have no clue how much time has passed before I saw Clementine come down the hall and I stand up and head over to her.

“You good?” I asked. She nods and we both walk outside and take our spots back on the small watch tower by the gate. I look to the walkers and I look at my guitar a bit then back to Clementine. She’s looking into the woods and then to the walkers and I grab my guitar and strum a few stings. She looks to me and I smile a bit as I play a familiar tune to me.

_ “I was an island before you came along put your boat in my sand, hand in my hand your heart in my songs.” _

_ “I was a fighter and I was so brave but I lowered my sword when you held me and swore you’d stay, stay, stay.” I sang and looked to Clementine and smiled. _

_ “I can't do this alone anymore 'Cause I'm no good on my own anymore what did I do to deserve this? What did you do to me? Baby, come back You know I don't want to be free.” I sing. _

_ “I was a rebel, but I had a cause 'Til you came to town, pushed me around And showed me what love was.” _

_ “I was a wolf, dear, apart from the pack But you answered my cry in the dead of the night and told me that you had my back, oh I can't do this alone anymore.” _

_ “Cause I'm no good on my own anymore What did I do to deserve this? What did you do to me? Baby, come back You know I don't want to be free.” _

_ “I can't do this alone anymore Cause I'm no good on my own anymore What did I do to deserve this? What did you do to me? Baby, come back You know I don't want to be free.” _

_ “Baby, come back You know I don't want to be free No, No, No Baby come back You know I don't want to be free.” _

“You know a lot of songs.” She comments and I chuckle.

“Yea… yea I do…. Ever heard of Neo-Folk music?” I asked as I look to her. She shook her head no a bit and I look to the school.

“No, not at all.” She says and I nod.

“I forgot my grandma taught me one song, she liked it, ironically it was the last song she sang to be before my grandpa passed away…. My grandpa told me how to play it too.” I mumbled as I strum the guitar a bit.

“Wanna sing it?” She asked and I look to her a bit.

“It’s a girl song.” I joke.

“The one you just sang sounded like a girl would sing it.” She says and I nod.

“And the original singer was a female… alright give me a bit.” I say and mess with the guitar a bit and strum the strings to hear if it was good.

“Alright.” I say and I play a tune. I look down to the guitar a bit and sigh.

_ “Atop the crags and cliffs, the air is thin So we'll find a mountain path on down the hill Meet me where the snow mount flows It is there, my dear, where we will begin again Skipping stones, braiding hair Last year's antlers mark the trail.” _

_ “Take us back, oh, take us back Oh, take us, take us back Take us back, oh, take us back Oh, take us, take us back.” _

_ “I've a friend who lives out by the rivers mouth He knows the fiddles cry is an old sound A lonesome creeks and moans of empty houses Are songs of like fallen rain Windblown buildings, muddy ground The strength of water can sink a man.” _

_ “Take us back, oh, take us back Oh, take us, take us back Take us back, oh, take us back Oh, take us, take us back.” _

_ “When the higher hills have turned blue And the waves are lapping where the children grew All that we have know will be an echo Of days when love was true Muted voices just beyond The silent surface of what has gone.” _

“….. I wish we could go back.” She says and I look up to see tears in her eyes. I pull her to me gently and she lays her head on my shoulder and I kiss the side of her head and look at the woods a bit.

“What do you remember about your parents?” I asked her as I rubbed her shoulder a bit.

“…. They always made sure I was happy.” She says and I nod.

“Your parents…. Why can’t your dad call you his son?” She asked.

“I think you know why but…. I honestly don’t care, at this moment…. He won’t change and he’ll be gone tomorrow morning…. Now come on what did you like as a kid?” I asked.

“I liked dogs…. My mom wouldn’t let me have one BUT she gave me a goldfish…. Named him peanut.” She says and I kiss her head gently.

“My dad also got me a hamster but…. I can’t remember what I named them.” She says and I rub her head gently. We watched the walkers for a bit and I get up slowly and grab my bow and arrows and I shoot them down. Once all we’re dead I rubbed my neck and looked to her.

“Walkers suck hu?” I asked and she laughed.

“Yea they really do.” She says and I watch her.

“I…saw my parents as… Walkers…. A few months after this started… I just turn nine a few days before that too.” She says and I look at her sadly.

“You did mention finding them…. didn’t think you found them as walkers.” I admitted as I sat next to her.

“I don’t think I did.” She says and she plucks the strings on my guitar and I smile.

“Wanna learn how to play it?” I ask and she shakes her head no. I nod and hold her to me. We stay up all night till the sun started to rise up into the sky to show that morning was here. I get up a bit and help Clementine down as Aasim and Ruby come to take their shifts. Omar was just heading over to the fire pit and started on breakfast which reminded me.

“We got to go hunting soon.” I mentioned.

“We can go later today after breakfast.” Clem says and I nod and head to Louis’s room. I knock on the door and he opens the door and he looks to me.

“Need the guns.” I say and he just nods as he hands them to me. I hear a sound and turn to see my parents exiting out the room and I head over to them just as Louis went outside. Leaving me lone with my mother and father once again.

“Finally gonna give us our guns back?” My dad asked and I look to him.

“Not till we get you to the edge of our safe zone.” I say and he glares at me.

“Listen here girl, you will respect your god damn elders, seems this school didn’t fucking teach you that shit.” He says and I tighten my jaw.

“I was sent here for other reasons.” I tell him.

“They didn’t fix that either, doesn’t matter you’ll always be a fucked up kid.” He says.

“John.”

“Shut the hell up Marie, I swear to god it’s your fault she ended up the way she did, a fucking freak, low life, psychotic brat.” He says to us.

“Vincent isn’t a low life.” I hear and look to see Tennessee and AJ at the end of the hall.

“AJ, Tenn, go over to Clementine and the others.” I tell them.

“But.” AJ and Tenn Botha say.

“NOW!” I yell at them both and they run off. I didn’t want to yell at them. It was a cruel thing to do to a child, yelling didn’t do anything right.

“Vincent.” My mother says and I look at both my parents.

“Listen and listen good John, you’re nothing but a fucking asshole to all parents, you can’t accept me, fine I don’t give two flying fucks wether you like me or not, but I am who I am now, not because of you. No all you did was fucking drink beer and sit on a fucking recliner watching TV while mom busted her ass, so don’t even pull that Holier than Thou bullshit you’re trying to do now, you’re a fucking wreak, I’m a fucking wreak, our family was a bunch of wreaks after grandpa died.” I tell him and he just glares at me as if it will do anything.

“So shut your god damn mouth, grow the fuck up, and keep your god damn words to yourself, these kids here are more family to me than you ever are.” I tell him as I walk out with the bag and head to the front of the school. I see AJ and Tenn looking at me and then away quickly and I sigh as I set the bag next to Clementine and I look at the boys.

“I’m sorry for yelling.” I tell them.

“You yelled at them?” Clementine asked.

“I didn’t mean to, and I’m really sorry…. Is there any way I can make it up to you guys?” I asked them and AJ looked to me.

“Can I go hunting with you?” He asked and I looked to Clementine.

“Can he?”

“….. Alright he can just keep him safe for me please.” She says and I nod.

“Yes, I’m gonna get the biggest deer there is.” He says and I chuckle and look to Tenn.

“If you find anything cool could you bring it back?” He asked and I nod and looked to both of them.

“I’m sorry.” I tell them again.

“You’re forgiven.” AJ says and I nod and look to see my parents walking out and I look to Clementine.

“I’ll come with you.” She says and I nod as I grabbed the bag and my dad walks to the gate with my mom. Clementine and I walk up to them and I open the gate and we begin to walk.

“Walkers have been around this area like crazy.” I tell them.

“Not like you care.” My dad says and I rub my neck.

“Just warning ya.” I say and Clementine comes up to me and takes my hand. I grip it a bit as we walk more and more towards the edge of the safe zone.

“Dating a black girl hu.” My dad says and I stop and look at him. My mom having the look of utter shock on her face as she looked to my father.

“Yes?” I questioned why he was saying this.

“Probably been sleeping around all black girls do.” He says and I glare at him as I let go of her hand.

“I swear to god I told you to keep your god damn words to yourself.” I tell him and he glares at me.

“And what are you going to do about it?” He says and I look to him and then to the ground. I hear him chuckle a bit as I turn around but I quickly turn back and punch him right in the face making him fall on his ass as he looked to me.

“Vincent.” I hear mom mom day and I glare at my dad.

“Don’t fucking….. don’t, I hope a Walker kills you while you’re out there, you deserve to die.” I tell him and I feel Clementine pull me back a bit and I look at her.

“Let’s just go.” She says and I glare at my dad once more and hand my mom their guns and take the bag with me.

“Fucking rot in hell you little bitch.” He says and I glare at him.

“Same for you.” I say to him as he gets up.

“You think you’re so god damn tough hu?” He says.

“Vincent don’t.” Clementine says and I look to her then back at my dad. I shake my head and we both walk away from the two and I look down at Clementine.

“He… I should have beat him more.” I say and look at my bloody hand.

“No you shouldn’t have.”

“But.”

“But nothing Vincent…. I know you hate your dad, and you should, but I don’t care what he says about me, he doesn’t know me, he doesn’t know my story…. I know you’re trying to protect me but I don’t need it.” She says and I look to her.

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.” She says.

“Everyone needs protection Clementine….. doesn’t matter how big you are or how old you are everyone needs it, now more than ever.” I tell her.

“I…. I didn’t mean…. I meant against words Vincent, that all they are, are just words, they don’t hurt me, and I know you don’t like your father talking like that, but you said so yourself he won’t change.” She says.

“He never acted like a racist though….” I mumbled as I look to her.

“Let him act that way, grown man wants to pick on a kid, so what, he shows his face around her again then you can kick his ass as long as I don’t see it.” She says and I look at her more.

“So what? That’s fucking wrong and vile.”

“And that’s how people are today, Vincent I’ve been called the N word by maniacs far worse than your dad, I had no clue what it was till later on and yea it annoyed the hell out of me, but they got what they had coming cause later on as they were being surrounded by walkers, I didn’t help them, no one helped them, karma is a bitch.” She says and I nod slowly as we head back to the school. I kept my eye close to the woods making sure my father didn’t try anything stupid as Clementine and I entered the school gates. It was later on in the day when I grabbed my rifle and AJ had his pistol and knife with him. Clementine came up to us and gave me a kiss and then kissed AJ on the cheek and he whipped it away with the pack of his hand.

“Yuck.” He says and I laugh a bit.

“Hey kisses are always good.” I say.

“Well Clementine has cooties.” He says and I laugh more.

“If I have cooties than so does Vincent.” She says and AJ looks at me.

“Mom gave you cooties.” He says and we both look at him.

“Mom?” She asked and he looked to her.

“I mean Clem… I said Clem.” He says and I look to Clementine who looked like she wanted to cry a bit.

“Let’s go hunting.” He says and runs off and I look to Clementine.

“I’ll have a talk with him ok?” I asked and she nods. I kiss her again and then head out with AJ as we go look for any deer.

“Is Clementine mad at me?” He asked as we searched the woods.

“Why would she be mad at you?” I ask. We get near the town a bit and we search a bit inside the buildings. AJ finds a toy he thinks is cool for Tenn and other toys too. I help him put them in his bag and I smile.

“Cause I called her mom.”

“No buddy she isn’t mad at that, she was just shocked is all.” I explain. As I look around and I find a pack of cigarettes, which I grabbed and looked for a lighter which I did find a few of them. I place the items in my pocket and look at AJ.

“Shocked? Why?” He asked.

“Well…. Have you ever called her mom before?” I asked him as we take a break and he sits on one of the chairs.

“No I never have.”

“It just came as a surprise to her is all.” I say and I look around a bit.

“Would you be surprised is I called you dad?” He asked and I look at him.

“I’d wonder why you’d call me dad.” I say to him truthfully.

“Well you’re with Clementine and if you’re with her and I call her mom then I should call you dad.” He says and I smile a bit and I rub my neck a bit.

“Well… I get your logic I do but… just cause I’m with her doesn’t mean you have to call me your dad.” I explain.

“Oh…do you not want me to call you dad?... will my real parents be mad?” He asked and I look to him sadly.

“No, no they wouldn’t be mad at you buddy.” I tell him and I spot a deer and I along with AJ both hide behind some shrubs by the building and look to the deer and I aim my rifle at it.

“Think I can make the shot?” I asked and looked to him a bit than back to the buck.

“I think you can.” He says and I nod as I take my aim and squeeze the trigger just a bit and shoot the buck. Once it was down AJ and I walk over to it and I look at him.

Alright I’ll carry it and you keep lookout for walkers?” I asked and he nods as I pick up the buck as best as I could and we start to walk back home.

“So Clementine isn’t mad?” He asked again and I shook my head a bit.

“Nope, actually I think she felt… happy.” I say.

“Happy?” He asked.

“Yea happy…. she’s taken care of you since you was a baby right?” I ask him and he nods as we keep walking.

“Well, it makes her happy that you’d call her your mom…. She raised you and has helped you…she’s done a lot…. Just like a mom would do for her kids.” I say as we get near the shack by the small river where we fish.

“Need a break?” He asked and I nod a bit as I set the buck down and I sit down on the steps.

“Your dad was really mean.” He says and I look at him.

“Yea… yea he was.” I say as I grabbed the pack of cigarettes from my pocket and I light one up.

“Can I try one?” He asked and I look at him.

“God no, this stuff kills you.” I tell him.

“So why do you do it?” He asked.

“Stressed out… but don’t you be doing this understand? You’re to young and it messes with your lungs.” I tell him.

“It can’t be that bad if you do it though.”

“Oh it’s bad trust me, you wouldn’t be able to run well cause you can’t breath, and you could get other health issues too.” I explain and he nods.

“Ok.” He says and I nod as I finish the cigarette and stomp it out with my boot. I go and pick up the buck and we start walking again. That is until there’s a loud bang and I drop the buck and grab my rifle and look around.

“AJ get in the shack.” I say quietly as he looks to me scared and he nods as he slowly heads to the shack and I look around more. There was another bang and a sharp pain in my leg as I fall to the ground.

“VINCENT!” AJ yells and I look at him.

“RUN!” I yell to him and he does as told. I get up a bit and head into the shack and look at my leg as I lean against the door.

“Come out here boy we know you’re in there.” I hear a woman say and I look at my bloody leg.

“Either you come out or we go after the kid that was with you.” She says and I open the door a bit.

“You fucked up my leg I can’t get up you idiot.” I say and another shot rings out and I take cover so as to not get shot again.

“I don’t take to kind to being called that, now drag your ass out here or we go after the kid.” I hear and I slowly get up. I feel the pain in my leg as I try to stay off of it and move to the door a bit and looked to see an Asian woman looking at me with a few other people near her pointing their guns at me.

“That’s a good boy, now come on out more.” She says and I move out a bit more hoping on one leg and I look at her.

“Good, now here’s what’s going to happen, you’re gonna take us to your home and we’re going to set camp there.” She says as she comes up to me along with a man and I look at her.

“What makes you think.” I try to say but a man points his gun at my temple.

“Either you do or you die and anyone in your group dies.” She says and I look at her.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Joan, and this is my group, now be a good boy and tell us where your home is.” She says and I look at her.

“I won’t tell.”

“Oh that’s to bad…. doesn’t matter we know you live at that abandoned school anyway.” She says and I look at her more. I felt a bit warm and I looked at my leg more.

“Oh don’t worry, your leg will be fine but you won’t care cause you’ll be dead soon.” She says and I look at her.

“Joan.” I hear and look to see Clementine and the others as they point their guns at this Joan persons group.

“Well if it isn’t Clementine, nice to see you again.” She says as she grabbed my shirt and the guy helped her as they threw me to the ground and I lifted myself up a bit before I had my own gun pointed at me and another man pointed his gun at the back of my head.

“DON’T!” I hear Clementine yell and I look at her and I slowly move my body back down to the ground and place my hands on the back of my head.

“Don’t what Clementine?” Joan asked.

“The hell do you want Joan?” She asked.

“Just your food and a place to stay…. Could start a new community.” She says.

“Are you fucking crazy.” Mitch says and I try to calm down.

“Not at all, either you give up your supplies of this young man… what did you call him Vincent? Well anyway he’s going to have his head blown off all around the dirt if you don’t comply.” She threatens.

“DON’T DO IT!” I yell out to them and Joan laughs.

“Don’t do it he says, honey if they don’t you die and so do they.” She says and I look to Clementine as she looked back to me.

“We can’t give you everything we barely have enough for ourselves.” Ruby says.

“Vincent here just got a buck, I think hunting for big game isn’t that bad around here.” She says.

“We don’t have proper place to store food to keep it from going bad.” Omar says.

“We can make one, ain’t that hard for us adults to get electricity going.” She says and I feel a sharp pain in my leg and I groan a bit.

“Stop it you’re hurting him.” Clementine says a bit panicked.

“We will once you give up all your stuff.” Joan says.

“You never keep a promise, you’re a god damn lair.” Clementine says and Joan laughs.

“You can think that all you want Clementine but I’ve never broken a promise.” She says and I feel the gun be pushed more to the back of my head and I keep still.

“Don’t just don’t hurt him we’ll give you our supplies.” Louis says.

“DON’T!” I tell them and look to them.

“We don’t have a god damn choice.” He says back and I look to him.

“Seems like all your friends are complying why don’t you?” Joan says as I look to my group sadly.

“You two stay here make sure he doesn’t move….. shoot him if he does, I along with the others will go with the kids to their home take supplies and then their home.” Joan says and I look down sadly.

“No, no you gotta help him, give him medicine for his leg.” Clementine says to Joan.

“How about I don’t shoot him and you take us where we want to go now.” Joan says.

“Fuck you.” Clem says.

“Sure Clementine, how about you stay here, you follow and Vincent here ends up dead.” Joan says and I look to see her along with my group except Clementine and AJ go in the direction of the school. It wasn’t long till they all came back and I was lifted off the ground by Joan’s men and she looked at me.

“Wasn’t so hard was it?” She asked me directly.

“Fuck you.” I tell her.

“No thanks, but it’s your lucky day boy, we don’t want your home….we can get a better place, plus electricity wouldn’t work at all there.” She says and I look at her more.

“Drop him and we can be on our way.” She says and they do drop my and I get up a bit and hold my leg as they leave and Clementine runs up to me and looks at my leg.

“Fuck, how bad?” She asked.

“I…. I can’t feel it so… I don’t know.” I say and look to the others.

“Mitch, Louis come help Vincent.” Ruby says as they come up and grab me. We all head back to the school where I see Tenn and Willy on the watch tower and they set me on the bench and Ruby takes a look at my leg.

“Oh god….. least the bullet came out and isn’t stuck.” She says.

“I can’t… feel it is that bad?” I asked.

“Might be.” She says.

“Fuck.”

“Don’t worry, we have some medicine stashed away from when the raiders were going to attack, we didn’t show that crazy lady that stuff.” She says and I look to her and I nod a bit. It wasn’t long till I was laying back with my head in Clementines lap looking at the clouds a bit.

“You ok?” She asked and I look at her and nod a bit.

“Yea… just still a bit shaken… is AJ ok?” I asked and we both look at him as he plays with Tenn.

“He was freaking out when he came running back to the school…. I thought you were bitten by a walker or killed with the way he was acting.” She says and I look up at her and wipe away her tears.

“I’m fine…. I just wish… I wish you guys didn’t have to save my ass like that.” I say and she looks to me.

“We’ll get them back one day… remember Karma is a bitch.” She says and I nod just a bit as I close my eye just a bit.

“So AJ called you dad.” She says and I open my eye and look at her.

“Yea? He asked me about that…. Saying that if you and I are together than he calls me dad… I told him he didn’t have to.” I explain.

“Do you not want him to?” She asked.

“It’s up to him, I don’t mind… I don’t mind at all.” I say and close my eye again.

“Tired?” She asked.

“Just resting my eye.”

“Really now?”

“Yea really…. You should try it sometimes.” I tell her and we both laugh a bit at that.

“I will one day.” She says and I take her hand gently into mine.

“…. You want my answer?” Clementine asked and I open my eye and look up to her again.

“Answer?”

“…. To your proposal.” She says and I sit up a bit and I nod.

“Yes… I’d like and answer…. If you’re ready.”

“…. Then Yes…. I’d love to be with you.” She says and I smile a bit and I kiss her gently.

**Author's Note:**

> Leave a Kudos? Ask some questions about this AU if you need something to be answered, hope it's a good story and hope to continue it.


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